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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Strolling Saint
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: April 16, 2001 [eBook #3423]
+[Most recently updated: January 27, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Stuart Middleton, and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STROLLING SAINT  ***
+
+
+
+
+THE STROLLING SAINT
+
+Being the Confessions of the High & Mighty Agostino D'Anguissola Tyrant
+of Mondolfo & Lord of Carmina, in the State of Piacenza
+
+By Raphael Sabatini
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+     BOOK ONE
+
+     THE OBLATE
+
+
+     CHAPTER
+
+         I.  NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+        II.  GINO FALCONE
+
+       III.  THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+        IV.  LUISINA
+
+         V.  REBELLION
+
+        VI.  FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+
+     BOOK TWO
+
+     GIULIANA
+
+
+         I.  THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI
+
+        II.  HUMANITIES
+
+       III.  PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+        IV.  MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+         V.  PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+        VI.  THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+
+     BOOK THREE
+
+     THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+         I.  THE HOME-COMING
+
+        II.  THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+       III.  GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+        IV.  THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+         V.  THE RENUNCIATION
+
+        VI.  HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+       VII.  INTRUDERS
+
+      VIII.  THE VISION
+
+        IX.  THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+
+     BOOK FOUR
+
+     THE WORLD
+
+
+         I.  PAGLIANO
+
+        II.  THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+       III.  PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+        IV.  MADONNA BIANCA
+
+         V.  THE WARNING
+
+        VI.  THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+       VII.  THE PAPAL BULL
+
+      VIII.  THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+        IX.  THE RETURN
+
+         X.  THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+        XI.  THE PENANCE
+
+       XII.  BLOOD
+
+      XIII.  THE OVERTHROW
+
+       XIV.  THE CITATION
+
+        XV.  THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I. THE OBLATE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+
+In seeking other than in myself--as men will--the causes of my
+tribulations, I have often inclined to lay the blame of much of the ill
+that befell me, and the ill that in my sinful life I did to others, upon
+those who held my mother at the baptismal font and concerted that she
+should bear the name of Monica.
+
+There are in life many things which, in themselves, seeming to the
+vulgar and the heedless to be trivial and without consequence, may yet
+be causes pregnant of terrible effects, mainsprings of Destiny itself.
+Amid such portentous trifles I would number the names so heedlessly
+bestowed upon us.
+
+It surprises me that in none of the philosophic writings of the learned
+scholars of antiquity can I find that this matter of names has been
+touched upon, much less given the importance of which I account it to be
+deserving.
+
+Possibly it is because no one of them ever suffered, as I have suffered,
+from the consequences of a name. Had it but been so, they might in their
+weighty and impressive manner have set down a lesson on the subject,
+and so relieved me--who am all-conscious of my shortcomings in this
+direction-from the necessity of repairing that omission out of my own
+experience.
+
+Let it then, even at this late hour, be considered what a subtle
+influence for good or ill, what a very mould of character may lie within
+a name.
+
+To the dull clod of earth, perhaps, or, again, to the truly
+strong-minded nature that is beyond such influences, it can matter
+little that he be called Alexander or Achilles; and once there was a man
+named Judas who fell so far short of the noble associations of that name
+that he has changed for all time the very sound and meaning of it.
+
+But to him who has been endowed with imagination--that greatest boon and
+greatest affliction of mankind--or whose nature is such as to crave for
+models, the name he bears may become a thing portentous by the images
+it conjures up of some mighty dead who bore it erstwhile and whose life
+inspires to emulation.
+
+Whatever may be accounted the general value of this premiss, at least as
+it concerns my mother I shall hope to prove it apt.
+
+They named her Monica. Why the name was chosen I have never learnt; but
+I do not conceive that there was any reason for the choice other than
+the taste of her parents in the matter of sounds. It is a pleasing
+enough name, euphoniously considered, and beyond that--as is so commonly
+the case--no considerations were taken into account.
+
+To her, however, at once imaginative and of a feeble and dependent
+spirit, the name was fateful. St. Monica was made the special object of
+her devotions in girlhood, and remained so later when she became a wife.
+The Life of St. Monica was the most soiled and fingered portion of an
+old manuscript collection of the life histories of a score or so of
+saints that was one of her dearest possessions. To render herself worthy
+of the name she bore, to model her life upon that of the sainted woman
+who had sorrowed and rejoiced so much in her famous offspring, became
+the obsession of my mother's soul. And but that St. Monica had wed and
+borne a son, I do not believe that my mother would ever have adventured
+herself within the bonds of wedlock.
+
+How often in the stressful, stormy hours of my most unhappy youth did I
+not wish that she had preferred the virginal life of the cloister, and
+thus spared me the heavy burden of an existence which her unholy and
+mistaken saintliness went so near to laying waste!
+
+I like to think that in the days when my father wooed her, she forgot
+for a spell in the strong arms of that fierce ghibelline the pattern
+upon which it had become her wont to weave her life; so that in all
+that drab, sackcloth tissue there was embroidered at least one warm and
+brilliant little wedge of colour; so that in all that desert waste, in
+all that parched aridity of her existence, there was at least one little
+patch of garden-land, fragrant, fruitful, and cool.
+
+I like to think it, for at best such a spell must have been brief
+indeed; and for that I pity her--I, who once blamed her so very
+bitterly. Before ever I was born it must have ceased; whilst still she
+bore me she put from her lips the cup that holds the warm and
+potent wine of life, and turned her once more to her fasting, her
+contemplations, and her prayers.
+
+That was in the year in which the battle of Pavia was fought and won by
+the Emperor. My father, who had raised a condotta to lend a hand in the
+expulsion of the French, was left for dead upon that glorious field.
+Afterwards he was found still living, but upon the very edge and border
+of Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have
+little doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation--a punishment
+upon her for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence
+from the narrow flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the
+footsteps of Holy Monica.
+
+How much the love of my father may still have swayed her I do not know.
+But to me it seems that in what next she did there was more of duty,
+more of penitence, more of reparation for the sin of having been a woman
+as God made her, than of love. Indeed, I almost know this to be so. In
+delicate health as she was, she bade her people prepare a litter for
+her, and so she had herself carried into Piacenza, to the Church of St.
+Augustine. There, having confessed and received the Sacrament, upon her
+knees before a minor altar consecrated to St. Monica, she made solemn
+vow that if my father's life was spared she would devote the unborn
+child she carried to the service of God and Holy Church.
+
+Two months thereafter word was brought her that my father, his recovery
+by now well-nigh complete, was making his way home.
+
+On the morrow was I born--a votive offering, an oblate, ere yet I had
+drawn the breath of life.
+
+It has oft diverted me to conjecture what would have chanced had I been
+born a girl--since that could have afforded her no proper parallel. In
+the circumstance that I was a boy, I have no faintest doubt but that she
+saw a Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and most
+natural happenings. It was as it should be; it was as it had been with
+the Sainted Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk. Monica
+had borne a son, and he had been named Augustine. It was very well. My
+name, too, should be Augustine, that I might walk in the ways of that
+other Augustine, that great theologian whose mother's name was Monica.
+
+And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
+the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me. It was made to do
+so. Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint--with such
+castrations as my tender years demanded--was told me and repeated until
+I knew by heart its every incident and act. Anon his writings were my
+school-books. His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at
+which I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
+
+And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my
+life, that was intended to have been so different, it is from
+his Confessions that I have gathered inspiration to set down my
+own--although betwixt the two you may discern little indeed that is
+comparable.
+
+I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my
+father's life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound. That
+restoration she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than
+she was, she must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the
+end. For betwixt my father and my mother I became from my earliest years
+a subject of contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost
+in enmity the one against the other.
+
+I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
+Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the
+seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of
+our renegade, guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?
+
+I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear
+him reasoning, upbraiding, storming. But he was as an ocean of energy
+hurling himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic
+obstinacy. She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would
+suffer tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled. And
+hers was a manner against which that strong man, my father, never
+could prevail. She would stand before him white-faced and mute, never
+presuming to return an answer to his pleading or to enter into argument.
+
+“I have vowed,” she would say, just once; and thereafter, avoiding his
+fiery glance, she would bow her head meekly, fold her hands, the very
+incarnation of long-suffering and martyrdom.
+
+Anon, as the storm of his anger crashed about her, two glistening lines
+would appear upon her pallid face, and her tears--horrid, silent weeping
+that brought no trace of emotion to her countenance--showered down. At
+that he would fling out of her presence and away, cursing the day in
+which he had mated with a fool.
+
+His hatred of these moods of hers, of the vow she had made which bade
+fair to deprive him of his son, drove him ere long to hatred of the
+cause of it all. A ghibelline by inheritance, he was not long in
+becoming an utter infidel, at war with Rome and the Pontifical sway.
+Nor was he one to content himself with passive enmity. He must be up and
+doing, seeking the destruction of the thing he hated. And so it befell
+that upon the death of Pope Clement (the second Medici Pontiff),
+profiting by the weak condition from which the papal army had not yet
+recovered since the Emperor's invasion and the sack of Rome, my father
+raised an army and attempted to shatter the ancient yoke which Julius II
+had imposed upon Parma and Piacenza when he took them from the State of
+Milan.
+
+A little lad of seven was I at the time, and well do I remember the
+martial stir and bustle there was about our citadel of Mondolfo, the
+armed multitudes that thronged the fortress that was our home, or
+drilled and manoeuvred upon the green plains beyond the river.
+
+I was all wonder-stricken and fascinated by the sight. My blood was
+quickened by the brazen notes of their trumpets, and to balance a pike
+in my hands was to procure me the oddest and most exquisite thrills that
+I had known. But my mother, perceiving with alarm the delight afforded
+me by such warlike matters, withdrew me so that I might see as little as
+possible of it all.
+
+And there followed scenes between her and my father of which hazy
+impressions linger in my memory. No longer was she a mute statue,
+enduring with fearful stoicism his harsh upbraidings. She was turned
+into a suppliant, now fierce, now lachrymose; by her prayers, by her
+prophecies of the evil that must attend his ungodly aims, she strove
+with all her poor, feeble might to turn him from the path of revolt to
+which he had set his foot.
+
+And he would listen now in silence, his face grim and sardonic; and when
+from very weariness the flow of her inspired oratory began to falter, he
+would deliver ever the same answer.
+
+“It is you who have driven me to this; and this is no more than a
+beginning. You have made a vow--an outrageous votive offering of
+something that is not yours to bestow. That vow you cannot break, you
+say. Be it so. But I must seek a remedy elsewhere. To save my son from
+the Church to which you would doom him, I will, ere I have done, tear
+down the Church and make an end of it in Italy.”
+
+And at that she would shrivel up before him with a little moan of
+horror, taking her poor white face in her hands.
+
+“Blasphemer!” she would cry in mingled terror and aversion, and upon
+that word--the “Amen” to all their conferences in those last days they
+spent together--she would turn, and dragging me with her, all stunned
+and bewildered by something beyond my understanding, she would hurry
+me to the chapel of the citadel, and there, before the high altar,
+prostrate herself and spend long hours in awful sobbing intercessions.
+
+And so the gulf between them widened until the day of his departure.
+
+I was not present at their parting. What farewells may have been spoken
+between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the other that
+they were destined never to meet again, I do not know.
+
+I remember being rudely awakened one dark morning early in the year,
+and lifted from my bed by arms to whose clasp I never failed to thrill.
+Close to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of
+great eyes, humid with tears, considered me passionately. Then a ringing
+voice--that commanding voice that was my father's--spoke to Falcone, the
+man-at-arms who attended him and who ever acted as his equerry.
+
+“Shall we take him with us to the wars, Falcone?”
+
+My little arms went round his neck and tightened there convulsively
+until the steel rim of his gorget bit into them.
+
+“Take me!” I sobbed. “Take me!”
+
+He laughed for answer, with something of exultation in his voice. He
+swung me to his shoulder, and held me poised there, looking up at me.
+And then he laughed again.
+
+“Dost hear the whelp?” he cried to Falcone. “Still with his milk-teeth
+in his head, and already does he yelp for battle!”
+
+Then he looked up at me again, and swore one of his great oaths.
+
+“I can trust you, son of mine,” he laughed. “They'll never make a
+shaveling of you. When your thews are grown it will not be on thuribles
+they'll spend their strength, or I'm a liar else. Be patient yet awhile,
+and we shall ride together, never doubt it.”
+
+With that he pulled me down again to kiss me, and he clasped me to his
+breast so that the studs of his armour remained stamped upon my tender
+flesh after he had departed.
+
+The next instant he was gone, and I lay weeping, a very lonely little
+child.
+
+But in the revolt that he led he had not reckoned upon the might and
+vigour of the new Farnese Pontiff. He had conceived, perhaps, that one
+pope must be as supine as another, and that Paul III would prove no more
+redoubtable than Clement VIII. To his bitter cost did he discover his
+mistake. Beyond the Po he was surprised by the Pontifical army under
+Ferrante Orsini, and there his force was cut to pieces.
+
+My father himself escaped and with him some other gentlemen of Piacenza,
+notably one of the scions of the great house of Pallavicini, who took a
+wound in the leg which left him lame for life, so that ever after he was
+known as Pallavicini il Zopo.
+
+They were all under the pope's ban, outlaws with a price upon the head
+of each, hunted and harried from State to State by the papal emissaries,
+so that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed,
+within the State of Piacenza, which had been rudely punished for the
+insubordination it had permitted to be reared upon its soil.
+
+And Mondolfo went near to suffering confiscation. Assuredly it would
+have suffered it but for the influence exerted on my mother's and my own
+behalf by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere,
+seconded by that guelphic cousin of my father's, Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+who, after me, was heir to Mondolfo, and had, therefore, good reason not
+to see it confiscated to the Holy See.
+
+Thus it fell out that we were left in peace and not made to suffer from
+my father's rebellion. For that, he himself should suffer when taken.
+But taken he never was. From time to time we had news of him. Now he was
+in Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for
+his safety's sake. And then one night, six years later, a scarred and
+grizzled veteran, coming none knew whence, dropped from exhaustion in
+the courtyard of our citadel, whither he had struggled. Some went to
+minister to him, and amongst these there was a groom who recognized him.
+
+“It is Messer Falcone!” he cried, and ran to bear the news to my mother,
+with whom I was at table at the time. With us, too, was Fra Gervasio,
+our chaplain.
+
+It was grim news that old Falcone brought us. He had never quitted my
+father in those six weary years of wandering until now that my father
+was beyond the need of his or any other's service.
+
+There had been a rising and a bloody battle at Perugia, Falcone informed
+us. An attempt had been made to overthrow the rule there of Pier Luigi
+Farnese, Duke of Castro, the pope's own abominable son. For some months
+my father had been enjoying the shelter of the Perugians, and he had
+repaid their hospitality by joining them and bearing arms with them in
+the ill-starred blow they struck for liberty. They had been crushed in
+the encounter by the troops of Pier Luigi, and my father had been among
+the slain.
+
+And well was it for him that he came by so fine and merciful an end,
+thought I, when I had heard the tale of horrors that had been undergone
+by the unfortunates who had fallen into the hands of Farnese.
+
+My mother heard him to the end without any sign of emotion. She
+sat there, cold and impassive as a thing of marble, what time Fra
+Gervasio--who was my father's foster-brother, as you shall presently
+learn more fully--sank his head upon his arm and wept like a child to
+hear the piteous tale of it. And whether from force of example, whether
+from the memories that came to me so poignantly in that moment of a fine
+strong man with a brown, shaven face and a jovial, mighty voice, who had
+promised me that one day we should ride together, I fell a-weeping too.
+
+When the tale was done, my mother coldly gave orders that Falcone be
+cared for, and went to pray, taking me with her.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered what was the tenour of her prayers that
+night. Were they for the rest of the great turbulent soul that was
+gone forth in sin, in arms against the Holy Church, excommunicate and
+foredoomed to Hell? Or were they of thanksgiving that at last she was
+completely mistress of my destinies, her mind at rest, since no longer
+need she fear opposition to her wishes concerning me? I do not know, nor
+will I do her the possible injustice that I should were I to guess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. GINO FALCONE
+
+
+When I think of my mother now I do not see her as she appeared in any
+of the scenes that already I have set down. There is one picture of her
+that is burnt as with an acid upon my memory, a picture which the mere
+mention of her name, the mere thought of her, never fails to evoke like
+a ghost before me. I see her always as she appeared one evening when she
+came suddenly and without warning upon Falcone and me in the armoury of
+the citadel.
+
+I see her again, a tall, slight, graceful woman, her oval face of the
+translucent pallor of wax, framed in a nun-like coif, over which was
+thrown a long black veil that fell to her waist and there joined the
+black unrelieved draperies that she always wore. This sable garb was no
+mere mourning for my father. His death had made as little change in
+her apparel as in her general life. It had been ever thus as far as my
+memory can travel; always had her raiment been the same, those trailing
+funereal draperies. Again I see them, and that pallid face with its
+sunken eyes, around which there were great brown patches that seemed to
+intensify the depth at which they were set and the sombre lustre of them
+on the rare occasions when she raised them; those slim, wax-like hands,
+with a chaplet of beads entwined about the left wrist and hanging thence
+to a silver crucifix at the end.
+
+She moved almost silently, as a ghost; and where she passed she seemed
+to leave a trail of sorrow and sadness in her wake, just as a worldly
+woman leaves a trail of perfume.
+
+Thus looked she when she came upon us there that evening, and thus will
+she live for ever in my memory, for that was the first time that I knew
+rebellion against the yoke she was imposing upon me; the first time that
+our wills clashed, hers and mine; and as a consequence, maybe, was it
+the first time that I considered her with purpose and defined her to
+myself.
+
+The thing befell some three months after the coming of Falcone to
+Mondolfo.
+
+That the old man-at-arms should have exerted a strong attraction upon
+my young mind, you will readily understand. His intimate connection with
+that dimly remembered father, who stood secretly in my imagination in
+the position that my mother would have had St. Augustine occupy, drew me
+to his equerry like metal to a lodestone.
+
+And this attraction was reciprocal. Of his own accord old Falcone sought
+me out, lingering in my neighbourhood at first like a dog that looks for
+a kindly word. He had not long to wait. Daily we had our meetings and
+our talks and daily did these grow in length; and they were stolen hours
+of which I said no word to my mother, nor did others for a season, so
+that all was well.
+
+Our talks were naturally of my father, and it was through Falcone that
+I came to know something of the greatness of that noble-souled, valiant
+gentleman, whom the old servant painted for me as one who combined with
+the courage of the lion the wiliness of the fox.
+
+He discoursed of their feats of arms together, he described charges
+of horse that set my nerves a-tingle as in fancy I heard the blare
+of trumpets and the deafening thunder of hooves upon the turf. Of
+escalades, of surprises, of breaches stormed, of camisades and ambushes,
+of dark treacheries and great heroisms did he descant to fire my
+youthful fancy, to fill me first with delight, and then with frenzy when
+I came to think that in all these things my life must have no part, that
+for me another road was set--a grey, gloomy road at the end of which was
+dangled a reward which did not greatly interest me.
+
+And then one day from fighting as an endeavour, as a pitting of force
+against force and astuteness against astuteness, he came to talk of
+fighting as an art.
+
+It was from old Falcone that first I heard of Marozzo, that
+miracle-worker in weapons, that master at whose academy in Bologna the
+craft of swordsmanship was to be acquired, so that from fighting with
+his irons as a beast with its claws, by sheer brute strength and brute
+instinct, man might by practised skill and knowledge gain advantages
+against which mere strength must spend itself in vain.
+
+What he told me amazed me beyond anything that I had ever heard, even
+from himself, and what he told me he illustrated, flinging himself into
+the poises taught by Marozzo that I might appreciate the marvellous
+science of the thing.
+
+Thus was it that for the first time I made the acquaintance--an
+acquaintance held by few men in those days--of those marvellous guards
+of Marozzo's devising; Falcone showed me the difference between the
+mandritto and the roverso, the false edge and the true, the stramazone
+and the tondo; and he left me spellbound by that marvellous guard
+appropriately called by Marozzo the iron girdle--a low guard on the
+level of the waist, which on the very parry gives an opening for the
+point, so that in one movement you may ward and strike.
+
+At last, when I questioned him, he admitted that during their
+wanderings, my father, with that recklessness that alternated curiously
+with his caution, had ventured into the city of Bologna notwithstanding
+that it was a Papal fief, for the sole purpose of studying with Marozzo
+that Falcone himself had daily accompanied him, witnessed the lessons,
+and afterwards practised with my father, so that he had come to learn
+most of the secrets that Marozzo taught.
+
+One day, at last, very timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of
+his utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself
+without the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something
+of Marozzo's art with real weapons.
+
+I had feared a rebuff. I had thought that even old Falcone might laugh
+at one predestined to the study of theology, desiring to enter into the
+mysteries of sword-craft. But my fears were far indeed from having a
+foundation. There was no laughter in the equerry's grey eyes, whilst
+the smile upon his lips was a smile of gladness, of eagerness, almost of
+thankfulness to see me so set.
+
+And so it came to pass that daily thereafter did we practise for an hour
+or so in the armoury with sword and buckler, and with every lesson
+my proficiency with the iron grew in a manner that Falcone termed
+prodigious, swearing that I was born to the sword, that the knack of it
+was in the very blood of me.
+
+It may be that affection for me caused him to overrate the progress that
+I made and the aptitude I showed; it may even be that what he said was
+no more than the good-natured flattery of one who loved me and would
+have me take pleasure in myself. And yet when I look back at the lad I
+was, I incline to think that he spoke no more than sober truth.
+
+I have alluded to the curious, almost inexplicable delight it afforded
+me to feel in my hands the balance of a pike for the first time. Fain
+would I tell you something of all that I felt when first my fingers
+closed about a sword-hilt, the forefinger passed over the quillons in
+the new manner, as Falcone showed me. But it defies all power of words.
+The sweet seduction of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the
+blade, were things that thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of
+the first kiss of passion. It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can
+think of nothing else in life that is worthy of being compared with it.
+
+I was at the time a lad in my thirteenth year, but I was well-grown and
+strong beyond my age, despite the fact that my mother had restrained me
+from all those exercises of horsemanship, of arms, and of wrestling by
+which boys of my years attain development. I stood almost as tall then
+as Falcone himself--who was accounted of a good height--and if my
+reach fell something short of his, I made up for this by the youthful
+quickness of my movements; so that soon--unless out of good nature he
+refrained from exerting his full vigour--I found myself Falcone's match.
+
+Fra Gervasio, who was then my tutor, and with whom my mornings were
+spent in perfecting my Latin and giving me the rudiments of Greek, soon
+had his suspicions of where the hour of the siesta was spent by me with
+old Falcone. But the good, saintly man held his peace, a matter which at
+that time intrigued me. Others there were, however, who thought well to
+bear the tale of our doings to my mother, and thus it happened that she
+came upon us that day in the armoury, each of us in shirt and breeches
+at sword-and-target play.
+
+We fell apart upon her entrance, each with a guilty feeling, like
+children caught in a forbidden orchard, for all that Falcone held
+himself proudly erect, his grizzled head thrown back, his eyes cold and
+hard.
+
+A long while it seemed ere she spoke, and once or twice I shot her a
+furtive comprehensive glance, and saw her as I shall ever see her to my
+dying day.
+
+Her eyes were upon me. I do not believe that she gave Falcone a single
+thought at first. It was at me only that she looked, and with such a
+sorrow in her glance to see me so vigorous and lusty, as surely could
+not have been fetched there by the sight of my corpse itself. Her lips
+moved awhile in silence; and whether she was at her everlasting prayers,
+or whether she was endeavouring to speak but could not for emotion, I do
+not know. At last her voice came, laden with a chill reproach.
+
+“Agostino!” she said, and waited as if for some answer from me.
+
+It was in that instant that rebellion stirred in me. Her coming had
+turned me cold, for all that my body was overheated from the exercise
+and I was sweating furiously. Now, at the sound of her voice, something
+of the injustice that oppressed me, something of the unreasoning bigotry
+that chained and fettered me, stood clear before my mental vision
+for the first time. It warmed me again with the warmth of sullen
+indignation. I returned her no answer beyond a curtly respectful
+invitation that she should speak her mind, couched--as had been her
+reproof--in a single word of address.
+
+“Madonna?” I challenged, and emulating something of old Falcone's
+attitude, I drew myself erect, flung back my head, and brought my eyes
+to the level of her own by an effort of will such as I had never yet
+exerted.
+
+It was, I think, the bravest thing I ever did. I felt, in doing it, as
+one feels who has nerved himself to enter fire. And when the thing was
+done, the ease of it surprised me. There followed no catastrophe such as
+I expected. Before my glance, grown suddenly so very bold, her own eyes
+drooped and fell away as was her habit. She spoke thereafter without
+looking at me, in that cold, emotionless voice that was peculiar to her
+always, the voice of one in whom the founts of all that is sweet and
+tolerant and tender in life are for ever frozen.
+
+“What are you doing with weapons, Agostino?” she asked me.
+
+“As you see, madam mother, I am at practice,” I answered, and out of
+the corner of my eye I caught the grim approving twitch of old Falcone's
+lips.
+
+“At practice?” she echoed, dully as one who does not understand. Then
+very slowly she shook her sorrowful head. “Men practise what they must
+one day perform, Agostino. To your books, then, and leave swords for
+bloody men, nor ever let me see you again with weapons in your hands if
+you respect me.”
+
+“Had you not come hither, madam mother, you had been spared the sight
+to-day,” I answered with some lingering spark of my rebellious fire
+still smouldering.
+
+“It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities
+before they take too strong a hold upon you,” answered she. “Lay down
+those weapons.”
+
+Had she been angry, I think I could have withstood her. Anger in her at
+such a time must have been as steel upon the flint of my own nature. But
+against that incarnation of sorrow and sadness, my purpose, my strength
+of character were turned to water. By similar means had she ever
+prevailed with my poor father. And I had, too, the habit of obedience
+which is not so lightly broken as I had at first accounted possible.
+
+Sullenly then I set down my sword upon a bench that stood against the
+wall, and my target with it. As I turned aside to do so, her gloomy eyes
+were poised for an instant upon Falcone, who stood grim and silent. Then
+they were lowered again ere she began to address him.
+
+“You have done very ill, Falcone,” said she. “You have abused my trust
+in you, and you have sought to pervert my son and to lead him into ways
+of evil.”
+
+He started under that reproof like a fiery stallion under the spur. His
+face flushed scarlet. The habit of obedience may have been strong in
+Falcone too; but it was obedience to men; with women he had never had
+much to do, old warrior though he was. Moreover, in this he felt that an
+affront had been put upon the memory of Giovanni d'Anguissola, who was
+my father and who went nigh to being Falcone's god. And this his answer
+plainly showed.
+
+“The ways into which I lead your son, Madonna,” said he in a low voice
+that boomed up and echoed in the groined ceiling overhead, “are the
+ways that were trod by my lord his father. And who says that the ways
+of Giovanni d'Anguissola were evil ways lies foully, be he man or
+woman, patrician or villein, pope or devil.” And upon that he paused
+magnificently, his eyes aflash.
+
+She shuddered under his rough speech. Then answered without looking up,
+and with no trace of anger in her voice:
+
+“You are restored to health and strength by now, Messer Falcone. The
+seneschal shall have orders to pay you ten gold ducats in discharge of
+all that may be still your due from us. See that by night you have left
+Mondolfo.”
+
+And then, without changing her deadly inflection, or even making a
+noticeable pause, “Come, Agostino,” she commanded.
+
+But I did not move. Her words had fixed me there with horror. I heard
+from Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob. I dared not
+look at him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and
+self-contained.
+
+What would he do, what would he say? Oh, she had done a cruel, a
+bitterly cruel wrong. This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched
+from wounds that he had taken in my father's service, to be turned
+away in his old age, as we should not have turned away a dog! It was a
+monstrous thing. Mondolfo was his home. The Anguissola were his family,
+and their honour was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of
+his own. To cast him out thus!
+
+All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time,
+as I waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that
+dismissal.
+
+He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that,
+without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old
+Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
+
+Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise. And
+then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that
+I had looked for. Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he
+dropped on one knee before me.
+
+“My lord!” he cried, and before he added another word I knew already
+what else he was about to say. For never yet had I been so addressed in
+my lordship of Mondolfo. To all there I was just the Madonnino. But to
+Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.
+
+“My lord,” he said, then. “Is it your wish that I should go?”
+
+I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother's
+voice came cold and acid.
+
+“The Madonnino's wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone. It is I
+who order your departure.”
+
+Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued
+to address himself to me.
+
+“You are the master here, my lord,” he urged. “You are the law in
+Mondolfo. You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your
+will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail.”
+
+He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain
+before me all these months, yet which I had not seen.
+
+“I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord,” he added; and then,
+almost in a snarl of defiance, “I obey none other,” he concluded, “nor
+pope nor devil.”
+
+“Agostino, I am waiting for you,” came my mother's voice from the
+doorway.
+
+Something had me by the throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone
+was the tempter. More than that was he--though how much more I did not
+dream, nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who
+showed me the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow
+I might shiver the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the
+cobwebs that they were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my
+will; and to my undoing was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My
+regrets for him went near to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet
+even these fell short.
+
+I would to God I had given heed to him. I would to God I had flung
+back my head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of
+Mondolfo, and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
+
+I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such
+fine spirit as he sought to inspire in me. Had I succeeded I had
+established my dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much
+of misery, of anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been
+spared!
+
+The hour was crucial, though I knew it not. I stood at a parting of
+ways; yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so
+invitingly he beckoned me.
+
+And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I
+strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown
+faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled
+my father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the
+strength of my poor young soul to snap.
+
+“Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother's. Tell him so and
+come. I am waiting for you.”
+
+I stifled a groan, and let my arms fall limply to my sides. I was a
+weakling and contemptible. I realized it. And yet to-day when I look
+back I see how vast a strength I should have needed. I was but thirteen
+and of a spirit that had been cowed by her, and was held under her
+thrall.
+
+“I... I am sorry, Falcone,” I faltered, and there were tears in my eyes.
+
+I shrugged again--shrugged in token of my despair and grief and
+impotence--and I moved down the long room towards the door where my
+mother waited.
+
+I did not dare to bestow another look upon that poor broken old warrior,
+that faithful, lifelong servant, turned thus cruelly upon the world by a
+woman whom bigotry had sapped of all human feelings and a boy who was a
+coward masquerading under a great name.
+
+I heard his gasping sob, and the sound smote upon my heart and hurt me
+as if it had been iron. I had failed him. He must suffer more in the
+knowledge of my unworthiness to be called the son of that master whom he
+had worshipped than in the destitution that might await him.
+
+I reached the door.
+
+“My lord! My lord!” he cried after me despairingly. On the very
+threshold I stood arrested by that heartbroken cry of his. I half
+turned.
+
+“Falcone... “ I began.
+
+And then my mother's white hand fell upon my wrist.
+
+“Come, my son,” she said, once more impassive.
+
+Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I passed out I heard Falcone's voice
+crying:
+
+“My lord, my lord! God help me, and God help you!” An hour later he
+had left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden
+ducats which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy
+grooms or serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse
+had old Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+
+That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her
+ever to have done before.
+
+It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me
+notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber. It may be
+that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment
+in the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to
+obey her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny
+ere it should spread and become too big for her.
+
+We sat in the room that was called her private dining-room, but which,
+in fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
+
+The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my
+father's day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings,
+their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the
+looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved
+movables, had been shut up these many years.
+
+For my mother's claustral needs sufficient was provided by the alcove
+in which she slept, the private chapel of the citadel in which she would
+spend long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into
+the spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into
+our town of Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his
+ill-starred rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge.
+
+“Tell me whom you go with, and I will tell you what you are,” says the
+proverb. “Show me your dwelling, and I shall see your character,” say I.
+
+And surely never was there a chamber so permeated by the nature of its
+tenant as that private dining-room of my mother's.
+
+It was a narrow room in the shape of a small parallelogram, with the
+windows set high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it
+was impossible either to look in or to look out, as is sometimes the
+case with the windows of a chapel.
+
+On the white space of wall that faced the door hung a great wooden
+Crucifix, very rudely carved by one who either knew nothing of anatomy,
+or else--as is more probable--was utterly unable to set down his
+knowledge upon timber. The crudely tinted figure would be perhaps half
+the natural size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous
+representation of the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen. It
+filled one with a horror which was far indeed removed from the pious
+horror which that Symbol is intended to arouse in every true believer.
+It emphasized all the ghastly ugliness of death upon that most barbarous
+of gallows, without any suggestion of the beauty and immensity of the
+Divine Martyrdom of Him Who in the likeness of the sinful flesh was
+Alone without sin.
+
+And to me the ghastliest and most pitiful thing of all was an artifice
+which its maker had introduced for the purpose of conveying some
+suggestion of the supernatural to that mangled, malformed, less than
+human representation. Into the place of the wound made by the spear of
+Longinus, he had introduced a strip of crystal which caught the light at
+certain angles--more particularly when there were lighted tapers in the
+room--so that in reflecting this it seemed to shed forth luminous rays.
+
+An odd thing was that my mother--who looked upon that Crucifix with eyes
+that were very different from mine--would be at pains in the evening
+when lights were fetched to set a taper at such an angle as was best
+calculated to produce the effect upon which the sculptor had counted.
+What satisfaction it can have been to her to see reflected from that
+glazed wound the light which she herself had provided for the purpose,
+I am lost to think. And yet I am assured that she would contemplate that
+shining effluence in a sort of ecstatic awe, accounting it something
+very near akin to miracle.
+
+Under this Crucifix hung a little alabaster font of holy-water, into
+the back of which was stuck a withered, yellow branch of palm, which was
+renewed on each Palm Sunday. Before it was set a praying-stool of plain
+oak, without any cushion to mitigate its harshness to the knees.
+
+In the corner of the room stood a tall, spare, square cupboard,
+capacious but very plain, in which the necessaries of the table were
+disposed. In the opposite corner there was another smaller cupboard with
+a sort of writing-pulpit beneath. Here my mother kept the accounts of
+her household, her books of recipes, her homely medicines and the heavy
+devotional tomes and lesser volumes--mostly manuscript--out of which she
+nourished her poor starving soul.
+
+Amongst these was the Treatise of the Mental Sufferings of Christ--the
+book of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who
+founded the convent of Poor Clares in that city--a book whose almost
+blasphemous presumption fired the train of my earliest misgivings.
+
+Another was The Spiritual Combat, that queer yet able book of the cleric
+Scupoli--described as the “aureo libro,” dedicated “Al Supremo Capitano
+e Gloriosissimo Trionfatore, Gesu Cristo, Figliuolo di Maria,” and this
+dedication in the form of a letter to Our Saviour, signed, “Your most
+humble servant, purchased with Your Blood.” 1
+
+     1 This work, which achieved a great vogue and of which
+     several editions were issued down to 1750, was first printed
+     in 1589. Clearly, however, MS. copies were in existence
+     earlier, and it is to one of these that Agostino here
+     refers.
+
+
+Down the middle of the chamber ran a long square-ended table of oak,
+very plain like all the rest of the room's scant furnishings. At the
+head of this table was an arm-chair for my mother, of bare wood without
+any cushion to relieve its hardness, whilst on either side of the board
+stood a few lesser chairs for those who habitually dined there. These
+were, besides myself, Fra Gervasio, my tutor; Messer Giorgio, the
+castellan, a bald-headed old man long since past the fighting age
+and who in times of stress would have been as useful for purposes of
+defending Mondolfo as Lorenza, my mother's elderly woman, who sat below
+him at the board; he was toothless, bowed, and decrepit, but he was very
+devout--as he had need to be, seeing that he was half dead already--and
+this counted with my mother above any other virtue.2
+
+2 Virtu is the word used by Agostino, and it is susceptible to a wider
+translation than that which the English language affords, comprising as
+it does a sense of courage and address at arms. Indeed, it is not clear
+that Agostino is not playing here upon the double meaning of the word.
+
+
+The last of the four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the
+seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom
+the only joyous thing was his misnomer of a name.
+
+Of the table that we kept, beyond noting that the fare was ever of a
+lenten kind and that the wine was watered, I will but mention that my
+mother did not observe the barrier of the salt. There was no sitting
+above it or below at our board, as, from time immemorial, is the
+universal custom in feudal homes. That her having abolished it was an
+act of humility on her part there can be little doubt, although this was
+a subject upon which she never expressed herself in my hearing.
+
+The walls of that room were whitewashed and bare.
+
+The floor was of stone overlain by a carpet of rushes that was changed
+no oftener than once a week.
+
+From what I have told you, you may picture something of the chill gloom
+of the place, something of the pietism which hung upon the very air of
+that apartment in which so much of my early youth was spent. And it had,
+too, an odour that is peculiarly full of character, the smell which
+is never absent from a sacristy and rarely from conventual chambers; a
+smell difficult to define, faint and yet tenuously pungent, and like
+no other smell in all the world that I have ever known. It is a musty
+odour, an odour of staleness which perhaps an open window and the fresh
+air of heaven might relieve but could not dissipate; and to this is wed,
+but so subtly that it would be impossible to say which is predominant,
+the slight, sickly aroma of wax.
+
+We supped there that night in silence at about the hour that poor Gino
+Falcone would be taking his departure. Silence was habitual with us at
+meal-times, eating being performed--like everything else in that drab
+household--as a sort of devotional act. Occasionally the silence would
+be relieved by readings aloud from some pious work, undertaken at my
+mother's bidding by one or another of the amanuenses.
+
+But on the night in question there was just silence, broken chiefly by
+the toothless slobber of the castellan over the soft meats that were
+especially prepared for him. And there was something of grimness in
+that silence; for none--and Fra Gervasio less than any--approved the
+unchristian thing that out of excess of Christianity my mother had done
+in driving old Falcone forth.
+
+Myself, I could not eat at all. My misery choked me. The thought of that
+old servitor whom I had loved being sent a wanderer and destitute, and
+all through my own weakness, all because I had failed him in his need,
+just as I had failed myself, was anguish to me. My lip would quiver at
+the thought, and it was with difficulty that I repressed my tears.
+
+At last that hideous repast came to an end in prayers of thanksgiving
+whose immoderate length was out of all proportion to the fare provided.
+
+The castellan shuffled forth upon the arm of the seneschal; Lorenza
+followed at a sign from my mother, and we three--Gervasio, my mother,
+and I--were left alone.
+
+And here let me say a word of Fra Gervasio. He was, as I have already
+written, my father's foster-brother. That is to say, he was the child
+of a sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose lusty, healthy
+breast my father had suckled the first of that fine strength that had
+been his own.
+
+He was older than my father by a month or so, and as often happens in
+such cases, he was brought to Mondolfo to be first my father's playmate,
+and later, no doubt, to have followed him as a man-at-arms. But a chill
+that he took in his tenth year as a result of a long winter immersion in
+the icy waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left
+him thereafter of a rather weak and sickly nature. But he was quick
+and intelligent, and was admitted to learn his letters with my father,
+whence it ensued that he developed a taste for study. Seeing that by
+his health he was debarred from the hardy open life of a soldier, his
+scholarly aptitude was encouraged, and it was decided that he should
+follow a clerical career.
+
+He had entered the order of St. Francis; but after some years at
+the Convent of Aguilona, his health having been indifferent and the
+conventual rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence
+to become the chaplain of Mondolfo. Here he had received the kindliest
+treatment at the hands of my father, who entertained for his sometime
+playmate a very real affection.
+
+He was a tall, gaunt man with a sweet, kindly face, reflecting his
+sweet, kindly nature; he had deep-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their
+gaze, a tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffering and
+an upright wrinkle, deep as a gash, between his brows at the root of his
+long, slender nose.
+
+He it was that night who broke the silence that endured even after the
+others had departed. He spoke at first as if communing with himself,
+like a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and his long
+forefinger, I remember that he kneaded a crumb of bread upon which his
+eyes were intent.
+
+“Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He
+would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift,
+to die to no purpose. Ah, well.” He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
+whilst I--the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my
+thoughts thus expressed--fell soundlessly to weeping.
+
+“Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?” quoth my mother, quite emotionless.
+
+The monk pushed back his stool and rose ere he replied. “I must,” he
+said, “or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear. I must reprove this
+unchristian act, or else am I no true servant of my Master.”
+
+She crossed herself with her thumb-nail upon the brow and upon the lips,
+to repress all evil thoughts and evil words--an unfailing sign that she
+was stirred to anger and sought to combat the sin of it. Then she spoke,
+meekly enough, in the same cold, level voice.
+
+“I think it is you who are at fault,” she told him, “when you call
+unchristian an act which was necessary to secure this child to Christ.”
+
+He smiled a sad little smile. “Yet even so, it were well you should
+proceed with caution and with authority; and in this you have none.”
+
+It was her turn to smile, the palest, ghostliest of smiles, and even for
+so much she must have been oddly moved. “I think I have,” said she, and
+quoted, “'If thy right hand offend thee, hack it off.'”
+
+I saw a hot flush mount to the friar's prominent cheek-bones. Indeed, he
+was a very human man under his conventual robe, with swift stirrings
+of passion which the long habit of repression had not yet succeeded
+in extinguishing. He cast his eyes to the ceiling in such a glance of
+despair as left me thoughtful. It was as an invocation to Heaven to
+look down upon the obstinate, ignorant folly of this woman who accounted
+herself wise and who so garbled the Divine teaching as to blaspheme with
+complacency.
+
+I know that now; at the time I was not quite so clear-sighted as to read
+the full message of that glance.
+
+Her audacity was as the audacity of fools. Where wisdom, full-fledged,
+might have halted, trembling, she swept resolutely onward. Before her
+stood this friar, this teacher and interpreter, this man of holy life
+who was accounted profoundly learned in the Divinities; and he told her
+that she had done an evil thing. Yet out of the tiny pittance of her
+knowledge and her little intellectual sight--which was no better than a
+blindness--must she confidently tell him that he was at fault.
+
+Argument was impossible between him and her. Thus much I saw, and I
+feared an explosion of the wrath of which I perceived in him the signs.
+But he quelled it. Yet his voice rumbled thunderously upon his next
+words.
+
+“It matters something that Gino Falcone should not starve,” he said.
+
+“It matters more that my son should not be damned,” she answered him,
+and with that answer left him weapon-less, for against the armour of a
+crassness so dense and one-ideaed there are no weapons that can prevail.
+
+“Listen,” she said, and her eyes, raised for a moment, comprehended both
+of us in their glance. “There is something that it were best I tell you,
+that once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino
+here. My lord his father was a man of blood and strife...”
+
+“And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and
+are its glory,” answered the friar with quick asperity.
+
+“But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against
+Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he,” she reminded him sorrowfully.
+“The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause. In
+my lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a
+thing accursed. But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia
+in all the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer. It
+was perhaps well for all of us that it so befell.”
+
+“Madonna!” cried Gervasio in stern horror.
+
+But she went on quite heedless of him. “Best of all was it for me, since
+I was spared the harshest duty that can be imposed upon a woman and a
+wife. It was necessary that he should expiate the evil he had wrought;
+moreover, his life was become a menace to my child's salvation. It was
+his wish to make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only
+son adown the path of Hell. It was my duty to my God and to my son to
+shield this boy. And to accomplish that I would have delivered up his
+father to the papal emissaries who sought him.”
+
+“Ah, never that!” the friar protested. “You could never have done that!”
+
+“Could I not? I tell you it was as good as done. I tell you that the
+thing was planned. I took counsel with my confessor, and he showed me my
+plain duty.”
+
+She paused a moment, whilst we stared, Fra Gervasio white-faced and with
+mouth that gaped in sheer horror.
+
+“For years had he eluded the long arm of the pope's justice,” she
+resumed. “And during those years he had never ceased to plot and
+plan the overthrow of the Pontifical dominion. He was blinded by his
+arrogance to think that he could stand against the hosts of Heaven. His
+stubbornness in sin had made him mad. Quem Deus vult perdere...” And
+she waved one of her emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished.
+“Heaven showed me the way, chose me for Its instrument. I sent him word,
+offering him shelter here at Mondolfo where none would look to find him,
+assuming it to be the last place to which he would adventure. He was to
+have come when death took him on the field of Perugia.”
+
+There was something here that I did not understand at all. And in like
+case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his brow,
+as if to clear thence some veils that clogged his understanding.
+
+“He was to have come?” he echoed. “To shelter?” he asked.
+
+“Nay,” said she quietly, “to death. The papal emissaries had knowledge
+of it and would have been here to await him.”
+
+“You would have betrayed him?” Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse, his eyes
+were burning sombrely.
+
+“I would have saved my son,” said she, with quiet satisfaction, in a
+tone that revealed how incontestably right she conceived herself to be.
+
+He stood there, and he seemed taller and more gaunt than usual, for he
+had drawn himself erect to the full of his great height--and he was a
+man who usually went bowed. His hands were clenched and the knuckles
+showed blue-white like marble. His face was very pale and in his temple
+a little pulse was throbbing visibly. He swayed slightly upon his
+feet, and the sight of him frightened me a little. He seemed so full of
+terrible potentialities.
+
+When I think of vengeance, I picture to myself Fra Gervasio as I beheld
+him in that hour. Nothing that he could have done would have surprised
+me. Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn her limb from limb,
+it would have been no more than from the sight of him I might have
+expected.
+
+I have said that nothing that he could have done would have surprised
+me. Rather should I have said that nothing would have surprised me save
+the thing he did.
+
+Whilst a man might have counted ten stood he so--she seeing nothing of
+the strange transfiguration that had come over him, for her eyes were
+downcast as ever. Then quite slowly, his hands unclenched, his arms
+fell limply to his sides, his head sank forward upon his breast, and his
+figure bowed itself lower than was usual. Quite suddenly, quite softly,
+almost as a man who swoons, he sank down again into the chair from which
+he had risen.
+
+He set his elbows on the table, and took his head in his hands. A groan
+escaped him. She heard it, and looked at him in her furtive way.
+
+“You are moved by this knowledge, Fra Gervasio,” she said and sighed. “I
+have told you this--and you, Agostino--that you may know how deep, how
+ineradicable is my purpose. You were a votive offering, Agostino;
+you were vowed to the service of God that your father's life might be
+spared, years ago, ere you were born. From the very edge of death was
+your father brought back to life and strength. He would have used that
+life and that strength to cheat God of the price of His boon to me.”
+
+“And if,” Fra Gervasio questioned almost fiercely, “Agostino in the end
+should have no vocation, should have no call to such a life?”
+
+She looked at him very wistfully, almost pityingly. “How should that
+be?” she asked. “He was offered to God. And that God accepted the gift,
+He showed when He gave Giovanni back to life. How, then, could it come
+to pass that Agostino should have no call? Would God reject that which
+He had accepted?”
+
+Fra Gervasio rose again. “You go too deep for me, Madonna,” he said
+bitterly. “It is not for me to speak of my gifts save reverently and in
+profound and humble gratitude for that grace by which God bestowed them
+upon me. But I am accounted something of a casuist. I am a doctor of
+theology and of canon law, and but for the weak state of my health I
+should be sitting to-day in the chair of canon law at the University of
+Pavia. And yet, Madonna, the things you tell me with such assurance make
+a mock of everything I have ever learnt.”
+
+Even I, lad as I was, perceived the bitter irony in which he spoke. Not
+so she. I vow she flushed under what she accounted his praise of her
+wisdom and divine revelation; for vanity is the last human weakness to
+be discarded. Then she seemed to recollect herself. She bowed her head
+very reverently.
+
+“It is God's grace that reveals to me the truth,” she said.
+
+He fell back a step in his amazement at having been so thoroughly
+misunderstood. Then he drew away from the table. He looked at her as
+he would speak, but checked on the thought. He turned, and so, without
+another word, departed, and left us sitting there together.
+
+It was then that we had our talk; or, rather, that she talked, whilst I
+sat listening. And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more
+under the spell of which I had more than once that day been on the point
+of casting off the yoke.
+
+For, after all, you are to discern in what I have written here, between
+what were my feelings at the time and what are my criticisms of to-day
+in the light of the riper knowledge to which I have come. The handling
+of a sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown. Yet was I ready
+to believe that such a thrill was but a lure of Satan's, as my mother
+assured me. In deeper matters she might harbour error, as Fra Gervasio's
+irony had shown me that he believed. But we went that night into no
+great depths.
+
+She spent an hour or so in vague discourse upon the joys of Paradise, in
+showing me the folly of jeopardizing them for the sake of the fleeting
+vanities of this ephemeral world. She dealt at length upon the love of
+God for us, and the love which we should bear to Him, and she read to
+me passages from the book of the Blessed Varano and from Scupoli to add
+point to her teachings upon the beauty and nobility of a life that
+is devoted to God's service--the only service of this world in which
+nobility can exist.
+
+And then she added little stories of martyrs who had suffered for the
+faith, of the tortures to which they had been subjected, and of the
+happiness they had felt in actual suffering, of the joy that their very
+torments had brought them, borne up as they were by their faith and the
+strength of their love of God.
+
+There was in all this nothing that was new to me, nothing that I did
+not freely accept and implicitly believe without pausing to judge or
+criticize. And yet, it was shrewd of her to have plied me then as
+she did; for thereby, beyond doubt, she checked me upon the point of
+self-questioning to which that day's happenings were urging me, and she
+brought me once more obediently to heel and caused me to fix my eyes
+more firmly than ever beyond the things of this world and upon the
+glories of the next which I was to make my goal and aim.
+
+Thus came I back within the toils from which I had been for a moment
+tempted to escape; and what is more, my imagination fired to some touch
+of ecstasy by those tales of sainted martyrs, I returned willingly to
+the pietistic thrall, to be held in it more firmly than ever yet before.
+
+We parted as we always parted, and when I had kissed her cold hand I
+went my way to bed. And if I knelt that night to pray that God might
+watch over poor errant Falcone, it was to the end that Falcone might be
+brought to see the sin and error of his ways and win to the grace of a
+happy death when his hour came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LUISINA
+
+
+Of the four years that followed little mention need be made in these
+pages, save for one incident whose importance is derived entirely from
+that which subsequently befell, for at the time it had no meaning for
+me. Yet since later it was to have much, it is fitting that it should be
+recorded here.
+
+It happened that a month or so after old Falcone had left us there
+wandered one noontide into the outer courtyard of the castle two pilgrim
+fathers, on their way--as they announced--from Milan to visit the Holy
+House at Loreto.
+
+It was my mother's custom to receive all pilgrim wayfarers and beggars
+in this courtyard at noontide twice in each week to bestow upon them
+food and alms. Rarely was she, herself, present at that alms-giving;
+more rarely still was I. It was Fra Gervasio who discharged the office
+of almoner on the Countess of Mondolfo's behalf. Occasionally the whines
+and snarls of the motley crowd that gathered there--for they were not
+infrequently quarrelsome--reached us in the maschio tower where we had
+our apartments. But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in
+the pillared gallery above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging
+human mass below, for the concourse was greater than usual.
+
+Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted,
+withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off,
+others again--and there were many of these--with hideous running
+sores, some of which no doubt would be counterfeit--as I now know--and
+contrived with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity
+in the piteous. All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and,
+doubtless, verminous. Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one
+another aside to reach Fra Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply
+of alms and food should be exhausted ere their turn arrived. Amongst
+them there was commonly a small sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of
+these, perhaps, just the hypocrite rogues that I have since discovered
+many of them to be, though at the time all who wore the scapulary were
+holy men in my innocent eyes. They were mostly, or so they pretended,
+bent upon pilgrimages to distant parts, living upon such alms as they
+could gather on their way.
+
+On the steps of the chapel Fra Gervasio would stand--gaunt and
+impassive--with his posse of attendant grooms behind him. One of the
+latter, standing nearest to our almoner, held a great sack of broken
+bread; another presented a wooden, trough-like platter filled with
+slices of meat, and a third dispensed out of horn cups a poor, thin, and
+rather sour, but very wholesome wine, which he drew from the skins that
+were his charge.
+
+From one to the other were the beggars passed on by Fra Gervasio, and
+lastly came they back to him, to receive from his hands a piece of
+money--a grosso, of which he held the bag himself.
+
+On the day of which I write, as I stood there gazing down upon that mass
+of misery, marvelling perhaps a little upon the inequality of fortune,
+and wondering vaguely what God could be about to inflict so much
+suffering upon certain of His creatures, to cause one to be born into
+purple and another into rags, my eyes were drawn by the insistent stare
+of two monks who stood at the back of the crowd with their shoulders to
+the wall.
+
+They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their
+tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the
+ample sleeves of their brown habits. One of this twain was broader than
+his companion and very erect of carriage, such as was unusual in a monk.
+His mouth and the half of his face were covered by a thick brown beard,
+and athwart his countenance, from under the left eye across his nose and
+cheek, ran a great livid scar to lose itself in the beard towards the
+right jaw. His deep-set eyes regarded me so intently that I coloured
+uncomfortably under their gaze; for accustomed as I was to seclusion, I
+was easily abashed. I turned away and went slowly along the gallery to
+the end; and yet I had a feeling that those eyes were following me, and,
+indeed, casting a swift glance over my shoulder ere I went indoors, I
+saw that this was so.
+
+That evening at supper I chanced to mention the matter to Fra Gervasio.
+
+“There was a big bearded capuchin in the yard at alms-time to-day--” I
+was beginning, when the friar's knife clattered from his hand, and he
+looked at me with eyes of positive fear out of a face from which the
+last drop of blood had abruptly receded. I checked my inquiry at the
+sight of him thus suddenly disordered, whilst my mother, who, as usual,
+observed nothing, made a foolish comment.
+
+“The little brothers are never absent, Agostino.”
+
+“This brother was a big brother,” said I.
+
+“It is not seemly to make jest of holy men,” she reproved me in her
+chilling voice.
+
+“I had no thought to jest,” I answered soberly. “I should never
+have remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an
+intentness--so great that I was unable to bear it.”
+
+It was her turn to betray emotion. She looked at me full and long--for
+once--and very searchingly. She, too, had grown paler than was her
+habit.
+
+“Agostino, what do you tell me?” quoth she, and her voice quivered.
+
+Now here was a deal of pother about a capuchin who had stared at the
+Madonnino of Anguissola! The matter was out of all proportion to the
+stir it made, and I conveyed in my next words some notion of that
+opinion.
+
+But she stared wistfully. “Never think it, Agostino,” she besought me.
+“You know not what it may import.” And then she turned to Fra Gervasio.
+“Who was this mendicant?” she asked.
+
+He had by now recovered from his erstwhile confusion. But he was still
+pale, and I observed that his hand trembled.
+
+“He must have been one of the two little brothers of St. Francis on
+their way, they said, from Milan to Loreto on a pilgrimage.”
+
+“Not those you told me are resting here until to-morrow?”
+
+From his face I saw that he would have denied it had it lain within his
+power to utter a deliberate falsehood.
+
+“They are the same,” he answered in a low voice.
+
+She rose. “I must see this friar,” she announced, and never in all my
+life had I beheld in her such a display of emotion.
+
+“In the morning, then,” said Fra Gervasio. “It is after sunset,” he
+explained. “They have retired, and their rule...” He left the sentence
+unfinished, but he had said enough to be understood by her.
+
+She sank back to her chair, folded her hands in her lap and fell into
+meditation. The faintest of flushes crept into her wax-like cheeks.
+
+“If it should be a sign!” she murmured raptly, and then she turned again
+to Fra Gervasio. “You heard Agostino say that he could not bear this
+friar's gaze. You remember, brother, how a pilgrim appeared near San
+Rufino to the nurse of Saint Francis, and took from her arms the child
+that he might bless it ere once more he vanished? If this should be a
+sign such as that!”
+
+She clasped her hands together fervently. “I must see this friar ere he
+departs again,” she said to the staring, dumbfounded Fra Gervasio.
+
+At last, then, I understood her emotion. All her life she had prayed
+for a sign of grace for herself or for me, and she believed that here at
+last was something that might well be discovered upon inquiry to be
+an answer to her prayer. This capuchin who had stared at me from
+the courtyard became at once to her mind--so ill-balanced upon such
+matters--a supernatural visitant, harbinger, as it were, of my future
+saintly glory.
+
+But though she rose betimes upon the morrow, to see the holy man ere he
+fared forth again, she was not early enough. In the courtyard whither
+she descended to make her way to the outhouse where the two were lodged,
+she met Fra Gervasio, who was astir before her.
+
+“The friar?” she cried anxiously, filled already with forebodings. “The
+holy man?”
+
+Gervasio stood before her, pale and trembling. “You are too late,
+Madonna. Already he is gone.”
+
+She observed his agitation now, and beheld in it a reflection of her
+own, springing from the selfsame causes. “Oh, it was a sign indeed!”
+ she exclaimed. “And you have come to realize it, too, I see.” Next, in a
+burst of gratitude that was almost pitiful upon such slight foundation,
+“Oh, blessed Agostino!” she cried out.
+
+Then the momentary exaltation fell from that woman of sorrows. “This but
+makes my burden heavier, my responsibility greater,” she wailed. “God
+help me bear it!”
+
+Thus passed that incident so trifling in itself and so misunderstood by
+her. But it was never forgotten, and from time to time she would allude
+to it as the sign which had been vouchsafed me and for which great
+should be my thankfulness and my joy.
+
+Save for that, in the four years that followed, time flowed an
+uneventful course within the four walls of the big citadel--for beyond
+those four walls I was never once permitted to set foot; and although
+from time to time I heard rumours of doings in the town itself, of the
+affairs of the State whereof I was by right of birth the tyrant, and
+of the greater business of the big world beyond, yet so trained and
+schooled was I that I had no great desire for a nearer acquaintance with
+that world.
+
+A certain curiosity did at times beset me, spurred not so much by the
+little that I heard as by things that I read in such histories as my
+studies demanded I should read. For even the lives of saints, and
+Holy Writ itself, afford their student glimpses of the world. But this
+curiosity I came to look upon as a lure of the flesh, and to resist.
+Blessed are they who are out of all contact with the world, since to
+them salvation comes more easily; so I believed implicitly, as I was
+taught by my mother and by Fra Gervasio at my mother's bidding.
+
+And as the years passed under such influences as had been at work upon
+me from the cradle, influences which had known no check save that brief
+one afforded by Gino Falcone, I became perforce devout and pious from
+very inclination.
+
+Joyous transports were afforded me by the study of the life of that
+Saint Luigi of the noble Mantuan House of Gonzaga--in whom I saw an
+ideal to be emulated, since he seemed to me to be much in my own case
+and of my own estate--who had counted the illusory greatness of this
+world well lost so that he might win the bliss of Paradise. Similarly
+did I take delight in the Life, written by Tommaso da Celano, of that
+blessed son of Pietro Bernardone, the merchant of Assisi, that Francis
+who became the Troubadour of the Lord and sang so sweetly the praises
+of His Creation. My heart would swell within me and I would weep hot and
+very bitter tears over the narrative of the early and sinful part of his
+life, as we may weep to see a beloved brother beset by deadly perils.
+And greater, hence, was the joy, the exultation, and finally the sweet
+peace and comfort that I gathered from the tale of his conversion, of
+his wondrous works, and of the Three Companions.
+
+In these pages--so lively was my young imagination and so wrought
+upon by what I read--I suffered with him again his agonies of hope, I
+thrilled with some of the joy of his stupendous ecstasies, and I almost
+envied him the signal mark of Heavenly grace that had imprinted the
+stigmata upon his living body.
+
+All that concerned him, too, I read: his Little Flowers, his Testament,
+The Mirror of Perfection; but my greatest delight was derived from his
+Song of the Creatures, which I learnt by heart.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered and sought to determine whether it was
+the piety of those lauds that charmed me spiritually, or an appeal to
+my senses made by the beauty of the lines and the imagery which the
+Assisian used in his writings.
+
+Similarly I am at a loss to determine whether the pleasure I took in
+reading of the joyous, perfumed life of that other stigmatized saint,
+the blessed Catherine of Siena, was not a sensuous pleasure rather than
+the soul-ecstasy I supposed it at the time.
+
+And as I wept over the early sins of St. Francis, so too did I weep over
+the rhapsodical Confessions of St. Augustine, that mighty theologian
+after whom I had been named, and whose works--after those concerning St.
+Francis--exerted a great influence upon me in those early days.
+
+Thus did I grow in grace until Fra Gervasio, who watched me narrowly and
+anxiously, seemed more at ease, setting aside the doubts that earlier
+had tormented him lest I should be forced upon a life for which I had no
+vocation. He grew more tender and loving towards me, as if something of
+pity lurked within the strong affection in which he held me.
+
+And, meanwhile, as I grew in grace of spirit, so too did I grow in
+grace of body, waxing tall and very strong, which would have been nowise
+surprising but that those nurtured as was I are seldom lusty. The mind
+feeding overmuch upon the growing body is apt to sap its strength
+and vigour, besides which there was the circumstance that I continued
+throughout those years a life almost of confinement, deprived of all the
+exercises by which youth is brought to its fine flower of strength.
+
+As I was approaching my eighteenth year there befell another incident,
+which, trivial in itself, yet has its place in my development and so
+should have its place within these confessions. Nor did I judge it
+trivial at the time--nor were trivial the things that followed out
+of it--trivial though it may seem to me to-day as I look back upon it
+through all the murk of later life.
+
+Giojoso, the seneschal, of whom I have spoken, had a son, a great
+raw-boned lad whom he would have trained as an amanuensis, but who was
+one of Nature's dunces out of which there is nothing useful to be made.
+He was strong-limbed, however, and he was given odd menial duties to
+perform about the castle. But these he shirked where possible, as he had
+shirked his lessons in earlier days.
+
+Now it happened that I was walking one spring morning--it was in May
+of that year '44 of which I am now writing--on the upper of the
+three spacious terraces that formed the castle garden. It was but an
+indifferently tended place, and yet perhaps the more agreeable on that
+account, since Nature had been allowed to have her prodigal, luxuriant
+way. It is true that the great boxwood hedges needed trimming, and that
+weeds were sprouting between the stones of the flights of steps that led
+from terrace to terrace; but the place was gay and fragrant with wild
+blossoms, and the great trees afforded generous shade, and the long rank
+grass beneath them made a pleasant couch to lie on during the heat of
+the day in summer. The lowest terrace of all was in better case. It was
+a well-planted and well-tended orchard, where I got many a colic in my
+earlier days from a gluttony of figs and peaches whose complete ripening
+I was too impatient to await.
+
+I walked there, then, one morning quite early on the upper terrace
+immediately under the castle wall, and alternately I read from the De
+Civitate Dei which I had brought with me, alternately mused upon the
+matter of my reading. Suddenly I was disturbed by a sound of voices just
+below me.
+
+The boxwood hedge, being twice my height and fully two feet thick,
+entirely screened the speakers from my sight.
+
+There were two voices, and one of these, angry and threatening, I
+recognized for that of Rinolfo--Messer Giojoso's graceless son; the
+other, a fresh young feminine voice, was entirely unknown to me; indeed
+it was the first girl's voice I could recall having heard in all my
+eighteen years, and the sound was as pleasantly strange as it was
+strangely pleasant.
+
+I stood quite still, to listen to its expostulations.
+
+“You are a cruel fellow, Ser Rinolfo, and Madonna the Countess shall be
+told of this.”
+
+There followed a crackling of twigs and a rush of heavy feet.
+
+“You shall have something else of which to tell Madonna's beatitude,”
+ threatened the harsh voice of Rinolfo.
+
+That and his advances were answered by a frightened screech, a screech
+that moved rapidly to the right as it was emitted. There came more
+snapping of twigs, a light scurrying sound followed by a heavier one,
+and lastly a panting of breath and a soft pattering of running feet upon
+the steps that led up to the terrace where I walked.
+
+I moved forward rapidly to the opening in the hedge where these steps
+debouched, and no sooner had I appeared there than a soft, lithe body
+hurtled against me so suddenly that my arms mechanically went round it,
+my right hand still holding the De Civitate Dei, forefinger enclosed
+within its pages to mark the place.
+
+Two moist dark eyes looked up appealingly into mine out of a frightened
+but very winsome, sun-tinted face.
+
+“O Madonnino!” she panted. “Protect me! Save me!”
+
+Below us, checked midway in his furious ascent, halted Rinolfo, his big
+face red with anger, scowling up at me in sudden doubt and resentment.
+
+The situation was not only extraordinary in itself, but singularly
+disturbing to me. Who the girl was, or whence she came, I had no thought
+or notion as I surveyed her. She would be of about my own age, or
+perhaps a little younger, and from her garb it was plain that she
+belonged to the peasant class. She wore a spotless bodice of white
+linen, which but indifferently concealed the ripening swell of her young
+breast. Her petticoat, of dark red homespun, stopped short above her
+bare brown ankles, and her little feet were naked. Her brown hair, long
+and abundant, was still fastened at the nape of her slim neck, but fell
+loose beyond that, having been disturbed, no doubt, in her scuffle with
+Rinolfo. Her little mouth was deeply red and it held strong young teeth
+that were as white as milk.
+
+I have since wondered whether she was as beautiful as I deemed her in
+that moment. For it must be remembered that mine was the case of the son
+of Filippo Balducci--related by Messer Boccaccio in the merry tales
+of his Decamerone 1--who had come to years of adolescence without ever
+having beheld womanhood, so that the first sight of it in the streets
+of Florence affected him so oddly that he vexed his sire with foolish
+questions and still more foolish prayers.
+
+     1 In the Introduction to the Fourth Day.
+
+
+So was it now with me. In all my eighteen years I had by my mother's
+careful contriving never set eyes upon a woman of an age inferior to her
+own. And--consider me foolish if you will but so it is--I do not think
+that it had occurred to me that they existed, or else, if they did, that
+in youth they differed materially from what in age I found them. Thus I
+had come to look upon women as just feeble, timid creatures, over-prone
+to gossip, tears, and lamentations, and good for very little that I
+could perceive.
+
+I had been unable to understand for what reason it was that San Luigi of
+Gonzaga had from years of discretion never allowed his eyes to rest upon
+a woman; nor could I see wherein lay the special merit attributed to
+this. And certain passages in the Confessions of St. Augustine and
+in the early life of St. Francis of Assisi bewildered me and left me
+puzzled.
+
+But now, quite suddenly, it was as if revelation had come to me. It was
+as if the Book of Life had at last been opened for me, and at a glance
+I had read one of its dazzling pages. So that whether this brown peasant
+girl was beautiful or not, beautiful she seemed to me with the radiant
+beauty that is attributed to the angels of Paradise. Nor did I doubt
+that she would be as holy, for to see in beauty a mark of divine favour
+is not peculiar only to the ancient Greeks.
+
+And because of the appeal of this beauty--real or supposed--I was very
+ready with my protection, since I felt that protection must carry
+with it certain rights of ownership which must be very sweet and were
+certainly desired.
+
+Holding her, therefore, within the shelter of my arms, where in her
+heedless innocence she had flung herself, and by very instinct stroking
+with one hand her little brown head to soothe her fears, I became
+truculent for the first time in my new-found manhood, and boldly
+challenged her pursuer.
+
+“What is this, Rinolfo?” I demanded. “Why do you plague her?”
+
+“She broke up my snares,” he answered sullenly, “and let the birds go
+free.”
+
+“What snares? What birds?” quoth I.
+
+“He is a cruel beast,” she shrilled. “And he will lie to you,
+Madonnino.”
+
+“If he does I'll break the bones of his body,” I promised in a tone
+entirely new to me. And then to him--“The truth now, poltroon!” I
+admonished him.
+
+At last I got the story out of them: how Rinolfo had scattered grain
+in a little clearing in the garden, and all about it had set twigs that
+were heavily smeared with viscum; that he set this trap almost daily,
+and daily took a great number of birds whose necks he wrung and had them
+cooked for him with rice by his silly mother; that it was a sin in any
+case to take little birds by such cowardly means, but that since amongst
+these birds there were larks and thrushes and plump blackbirds and other
+sweet musicians of the air, whose innocent lives were spent in singing
+the praises of God, his sin became a hideous sacrilege.
+
+Finally I learnt that coming that morning upon half a score of poor
+fluttering terrified birds held fast in Rinolfo's viscous snares, the
+little girl had given them their liberty and had set about breaking
+up the springes. At this occupation he had caught her, and there is no
+doubt that he would have taken a rude vengeance but for the sanctuary
+which she had found in me.
+
+And when I had heard, behold me for the first time indulging the
+prerogative that was mine by right of birth, and dispensing justice at
+Mondolfo like the lord of life and death that I was there.
+
+“You, Rinolfo,” I said, “will set no more snares here at Mondolfo, nor
+will you ever again enter these gardens under pain of my displeasure and
+its consequences. And as for this child, if you dare to molest her for
+what has happened now, or if you venture so much as to lay a finger upon
+her at any time and I have word of it, I shall deal with you as with a
+felon. Now go.”
+
+He went straight to his father, the seneschal, with a lying tale of my
+having threatened him with violence and forbidden him ever to enter the
+garden again because he had caught me there with Luisina--as the child
+was called--in my arms. And Messer Giojoso, full of parental indignation
+at this gross treatment of his child, and outraged chastity at
+the notion of a young man of churchly aims, as were mine, being in
+perversive dalliance with that peasant-wench, repaired straight to
+my mother with the story of it, which I doubt not lost nothing by its
+repetition.
+
+Meanwhile I abode there with Luisina. I was in no haste to let her go.
+Her presence pleased me in some subtle, quite indefinable manner; and my
+sense of beauty, which, always strong, had hitherto lain dormant within
+me, was awake at last and was finding nourishment in the graces of her.
+
+I sat down upon the topmost of the terrace steps, and made her sit
+beside me. This she did after some demur about the honour of it and her
+own unworthiness, objections which I brushed peremptorily aside.
+
+So we sat there on that May morning, quite close together, for which
+there was, after all, no need, seeing that the steps were of a noble
+width. At our feet spread the garden away down the flight of terraces
+to end in the castle's grey, buttressed wall. But from where we sat we
+could look beyond this, our glance meeting the landscape a mile or so
+away with the waters of the Taro glittering in the sunshine, and the
+Apennines, all hazy, for an ultimate background.
+
+I took her hand, which she relinquished to me quite freely and frankly
+with an innocence as great as my own; and I asked her who she was and
+how she came to Mondolfo. It was then that I learnt that her name was
+Luisina, that she was the daughter of one of the women employed in the
+castle kitchen, who had brought her to help there a week ago from Borgo
+Taro, where she had been living with an aunt.
+
+To-day the notion of the Tyrant of Mondolfo sitting--almost coram
+populo--on the steps of the garden of his castle, clasping the hand of
+the daughter of one of his scullions, is grotesque and humiliating. At
+the time the thought never presented itself to me at all, and had it
+done so it would have troubled me no whit. She was my first glimpse
+of fresh young maidenhood, and I was filled with pleasant interest and
+desirous of more acquaintance with this phenomenon. Beyond that I did
+not go.
+
+I told her frankly that she was very beautiful. Whereupon she looked at
+me with suddenly startled eyes that were full of fearful questionings,
+and made to draw her hand from mine. Unable to understand her fears, and
+seeking to reassure her, to convince her that in me she had a friend,
+one who would ever protect her from the brutalities of all the Rinolfos
+in the world, I put an arm about her shoulders and drew her closer to
+me, gently and protectingly.
+
+She suffered it very stonily, like a poor fascinated thing that is
+robbed by fear of its power to resist the evil that it feels enfolding
+it.
+
+“O Madonnino!” she whispered fearfully, and sighed. “Nay, you must not.
+It... it is not good.”
+
+“Not good?” quoth I, and it was just so that that fool of a son of
+Balducci's must have protested in the story when he was told by his
+father that it was not good to look on women. “Nay, now, but it is good
+to me.”
+
+“And they say you are to be a priest,” she added, which seemed to me a
+very foolish and inconsequent thing to add.
+
+“Well, then? And what of that?” I asked.
+
+She looked at me again with those timid eyes of hers. “You should be at
+your studies,” said she.
+
+“I am,” said I, and smiled. “I am studying a new subject.”
+
+“Madonnino, it is not a subject whose study makes good priests,” she
+announced, and puzzled me again by the foolish inconsequence of her
+words.
+
+Already, indeed, she began to disappoint me. Saving my mother--whom I
+did not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether
+apart from what little humanity I had known until then--I had found
+that foolishness was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its
+cackle to a goose; and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by
+Fra Gervasio. Now here in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had
+discovered a phase of womanhood unsuspected and exceptional. She was
+driving me to conclude, however, that I had been mistaken, and that
+here was just a pretty husk containing a very trivial spirit, whose
+companionship must prove a dull affair when custom should have staled
+the first impression of her fresh young beauty.
+
+It is plain now that I did her an injustice, for there was about her
+words none of the inconsequence I imagined. The fault was in myself and
+in the profound ignorance of the ways of men and women which went hand
+in hand with my deep but ineffectual learning in the ways of saints.
+
+Our entertainment, however, was not destined to go further. For at the
+moment in which I puzzled over her words and sought to attach to them
+some intelligent meaning, there broke from behind us a scream that flung
+us apart, as startled as if we had been conscious indeed of guilt.
+
+We looked round to find that it had been uttered by my mother. Not ten
+yards away she stood, a tall black figure against the grey background
+of the lichened wall, with Giojoso in attendance and Rinolfo slinking
+behind his father, leering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. REBELLION
+
+
+The sight of my mother startled me more than I can say. It filled me
+with a positive dread of things indefinable. Never before had I seen
+her coldly placid countenance so strangely disordered, and her unwonted
+aspect it must have been that wrought so potently upon me.
+
+No longer was she the sorrowful spectre, white-faced, with downcast eyes
+and level, almost inanimate, tones. Her cheeks were flushed unnaturally,
+her lips were quivering, and angry fires were smouldering in her
+deep-set eyes.
+
+Swiftly she came down to us, seeming almost to glide over the ground.
+Not me she addressed, but poor Luisina; and her voice was hoarse with an
+awful anger.
+
+“Who are you, wench?” quoth she. “What make you here in Mondolfo?”
+
+Luisina had risen and stood swaying there, very white and with averted
+eyes, her hands clasping and unclasping. Her lips moved; but she was
+too terrified to answer. It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my
+mother of the girl's name and condition. And upon learning it her anger
+seemed to increase.
+
+“A kitchen-wench!” she cried. “O horror!”
+
+And quite suddenly, as if by inspiration, scarce knowing what I said or
+that I spoke at all, I answered her out of the store of the theological
+learning with which she had had me stuffed.
+
+“We are all equals in the sight of God, madam mother.”
+
+She flashed me a glance of anger, of pious anger than which none can be
+more terrible.
+
+“Blasphemer!” she denounced me. “What has God to do with this?”
+
+She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to
+offer.
+
+“And as for that wanton,” she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso,
+“let her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo. Set the
+grooms to it.”
+
+But upon that command of hers I leapt of a sudden to my feet, a
+tightening about my heart, and beset by a certain breathlessness that
+turned me pale.
+
+Here again, it seemed, was to be repeated--though with methods a
+thousand times more barbarous and harsh--the wrong that was done years
+ago in the case of poor Gino Falcone. And the reason for it in this
+instance was not even dimly apparent to me. Falcone I had loved; indeed,
+in my eighteen years of life he was the only human being who had knocked
+for admission upon the portals of my heart. Him they had driven forth.
+And now, here was a child--the fairest creature of God's that until that
+hour I had beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and
+desirable, and whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone.
+Her too they would drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that
+revolted me.
+
+Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection
+was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so
+fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of
+the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger.
+
+All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is
+jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever
+known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for
+the love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding
+the blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle
+mandates of the God Incarnate.
+
+Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at
+peace in pharisaic self-righteousness.
+
+But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone,
+and let her cruel, pietistic will be done. I had grown since then, and I
+had ripened more than I was aware. It remained for this moment to reveal
+to me the extent. Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious
+of it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood.
+
+“Stay!” I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold
+and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.
+
+He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.
+
+“You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have
+been bidden. But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them
+dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him
+will I kill with these two hands.”
+
+Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst
+them by those words. Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the
+cause of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother,
+all a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but
+spoke no word.
+
+I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for
+the first time in my life.
+
+“Well?” I demanded of Giojoso. “For what do you wait? About it, sir, and
+do as my mother has commanded you.”
+
+He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in
+ludicrous bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this
+path so suddenly grown thorny.
+
+“Ma--madonna!” he stammered.
+
+She swallowed hard, and spoke at last.
+
+“Do you defy my will, Agostino?”
+
+“On the contrary, madam mother, I am enforcing it. Your will shall be
+done; your order shall be given. I insist upon it. But it shall lie with
+the discretion of the grooms whether they obey you. Am I to blame if
+they turn cowards?”
+
+O, I had found myself at last, and I was making a furious, joyous use of
+the discovery.
+
+“That... that were to make a mock of me and my authority,” she protested.
+She was still rather helpless, rather breathless and confused, like one
+who has suddenly been hurled into cold water.
+
+“If you fear that, madam, perhaps you had better countermand your
+order.”
+
+“Is the girl to remain in Mondolfo against my wishes? Are you so... so
+lost to shame?” A returning note of warmth in her accents warned me that
+she was collecting herself to deal with the situation.
+
+“Nay,” said I, and I looked at Luisina, who stood there so pale and
+tearful. “I think that for her own sake, poor maid, it were better that
+she went, since you desire it. But she shall not be whipped hence like a
+stray dog.”
+
+“Come, child,” I said to her, as gently as I could. “Go pack, and quit
+this home of misery. And be easy. For if any man in Mondolfo attempts to
+hasten your going, he shall reckon with me.”
+
+I laid a hand for an instant in kindliness and friendliness upon her
+shoulder. “Poor little Luisina,” said I, sighing. But she shrank and
+trembled under my touch. “Pity me a little, for they will not permit me
+any friends, and who is friendless is indeed pitiful.”
+
+And then, whether the phrase touched her, so that her simple little
+nature was roused and she shook off what self-control she had ever
+learnt, or whether she felt secure enough in my protection to dare
+proclaim her mind before them all, she caught my hand, and, stooping,
+kissed it.
+
+“O Madonnino!” she faltered, and her tears showered upon that hand of
+mine. “God reward you your sweet thought for me. I shall pray for you,
+Madonnino.”
+
+“Do, Luisina,” said I. “I begin to think I need it.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed!” said my mother very sombrely. And as she spoke,
+Luisina, as if her fears were reawakened, turned suddenly and went
+quickly along the terrace, past Rinolfo, who in that moment smiled
+viciously, and round the angle of the wall.
+
+“What... what are my orders, Madonna?” quoth the wretched seneschal,
+reminding her that all had not yet been resolved.
+
+She lowered her eyes to the ground, and folded her hands. She was by now
+quite composed again, her habitual sorrowful self.
+
+“Let be,” she said. “Let the wench depart. So that she goes we may count
+ourselves fortunate.”
+
+“Fortunate, I think, is she,” said I. “Fortunate to return to the world
+beyond all this--the world of life and love that God made and that St.
+Francis praises. I do not think he would have praised Mondolfo, for I
+greatly doubt that God had a hand in making it as it is to-day. It is
+too... too arid.”
+
+O, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning.
+
+“Are you mad, Agostino?” gasped my mother.
+
+“I think that I am growing sane,” said I very sadly. She flashed me one
+of her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten.
+
+“We must talk,” she said. “That girl...” And then she checked. “Come
+with me,” she bade me.
+
+But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look
+for my friend Rinolfo. He was moving stealthily away, following the road
+Luisina had taken. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at
+her, to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all
+anew.
+
+“Stay! You there! Rinolfo!” I called.
+
+He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.
+
+I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due. Indeed,
+I think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have
+been held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come
+to more manhood than that of the cassock.
+
+“Come here,” I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat
+the order more peremptorily. At last he turned and came.
+
+“What now, Agostino?” cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my
+sleeve
+
+But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting
+uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen. Over his shoulder I
+had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.
+
+“I think you smiled just now,” said I.
+
+“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he impudently, as who would say: “How could I
+help smiling?”
+
+“Will you tell me why you smiled?” I asked him.
+
+“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a
+barb.
+
+“Will you answer me?” I roared, and under my display of anger he looked
+truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.
+
+“Agostino!” came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power
+of habit that for a moment it controlled me and subdued my violence.
+
+Nevertheless I went on, “You smiled to see your spite succeed. You
+smiled to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you
+smiled to see your broken snares avenged. And you were following after
+her no doubt to tell her all this and to smile again. This is all so, it
+is not?”
+
+“Heh! By Bacchus!” said he for the third time, and at that my patience
+gave out utterly. Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and
+belt and shaken him savagely.
+
+“Will you answer me like a fool?” I cried. “Must you be taught sense and
+a proper respect of me?”
+
+“Agostino! Agostino!” wailed my mother. “Help, Ser Giojoso! Do you not
+see that he is mad!”
+
+I do not believe that it was in my mind to do the fellow any grievous
+hurt. But he was so ill-advised in that moment as to attempt to defend
+himself. He rashly struck at one of the arms that held him, and by the
+act drove me into a fury ungovernable.
+
+“You dog!” I snarled at him from between clenched teeth. “Would you
+raise your hand to me? Am I your lord, or am I dirt of your own kind?
+Go learn submission.” And I flung him almost headlong down the flight of
+steps.
+
+There were twelve of them and all of stone with edges still sharp enough
+though blunted here and there by time. The fool had never suspected in
+me the awful strength which until that hour I had never suspected in
+myself. Else, perhaps, there had been fewer insolent shrugs, fewer
+foolish answers, and, last of all, no attempt to defy me physically.
+
+He screamed as I flung him; my mother screamed; and Giojoso screamed.
+
+After that there was a panic-stricken silence whilst he went thudding
+and bumping to the bottom of the flight. I did not greatly care if I
+killed him. But he was fortunate enough to get no worse hurt than a
+broken leg, which should keep him out of mischief for a season and teach
+him respect for me for all time.
+
+His father scuttled down the steps to the assistance of that precious
+son, who lay moaning where he had fallen, the angle at which the half of
+one of his legs stood to the rest of it, plainly announcing the nature
+of his punishment.
+
+My mother swept me indoors, loading me with reproaches as we went. She
+dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra
+Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room. I went very
+obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen
+from me.
+
+There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight
+falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could
+help to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided
+me and then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the
+table's head.
+
+At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard
+some rumour of what had chanced. His keen eyes went from me to my mother
+and then back again to me.
+
+“What has happened?” he asked.
+
+“What has not happened?” wailed my mother. “Agostino is possessed.”
+
+He knit his brows. “Possessed?” quoth he.
+
+“Ay, possessed--possessed of devils. He has been violent. He has broken
+poor Rinolfo's leg.”
+
+“Ah!” said Gervasio, and turned to me frowning with full tutorial
+sternness. “And what have you to say, Agostino?”
+
+“Why, that I am sorry,” answered I, rebellious once more. “I had hoped
+to break his dirty neck.”
+
+“You hear him!” cried my mother. “It is the end of the world, Gervasio.
+The boy is possessed, I say.”
+
+“What was the cause of your quarrel?” quoth the friar, his manner still
+more stern.
+
+“Quarrel?” quoth I, throwing back my head and snorting audibly. “I do
+not quarrel with Rinolfos. I chastise them when they are insolent or
+displease me. This one did both.”
+
+He halted before me, erect and very stern--indeed almost threatening.
+And I began to grow afraid; for, after all, I had a kindness for
+Gervasio, and I would not willingly engage in a quarrel with him. Yet
+here I was determined to carry through this thing as I had begun it.
+
+It was my mother who saved the situation.
+
+“Alas!” she moaned, “there is wicked blood in him. He has the abominable
+pride that was the ruin and downfall of his father.”
+
+Now that was not the way to make an ally of Fra Gervasio. It did the
+very opposite. It set him instantly on my side, in antagonism to
+the abuser of my father's memory, a memory which he, poor man, still
+secretly revered.
+
+The sternness fell away from him. He looked at her and sighed. Then,
+with bowed head, and hands clasped behind him, he moved away from me a
+little.
+
+“Do not let us judge rashly,” he said. “Perhaps Agostino received some
+provocation. Let us hear...”
+
+“O, you shall hear,” she promised tearfully, exultant to prove him
+wrong. “You shall hear a yet worse abomination that was the cause of
+it.”
+
+And out she poured the story that Rinolfo and his father had run to
+tell her--of how I had shown the fellow violence in the first instance
+because he had surprised me with Luisina in my arms.
+
+The friar's face grew dark and grave as he listened. But ere she had
+quite done, unable longer to contain myself, I interrupted.
+
+“In that he lied like the muckworm that he is,” I exclaimed. “And it
+increases my regrets that I did not break his neck as I intended.”
+
+“He lied?” quoth she, her eyes wide open in amazement--not at the fact,
+but at the audacity of what she conceived my falsehood.
+
+“It is not impossible,” said Fra Gervasio. “What is your story,
+Agostino?”
+
+I told it--how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had
+released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and
+how in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for
+shelter and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out
+of that garden, and never set foot in it again.
+
+“And now,” I ended, “you know all the violence that I showed him, and
+the reason for it. If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall
+not believe you.”
+
+“Indeed...” began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness. But my
+mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
+
+“He lies, Gervasio. He lies shamelessly. O, into what a morass of sin
+has he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper! Have I not said that
+he is possessed? We shall need the exorcist.”
+
+“We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness,” I
+answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar,
+to have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
+
+She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. “Agostino, I am your mother,”
+ she reminded me.
+
+“Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,”
+ answered I, utterly reckless now.
+
+The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at
+Fra Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. “Is he... is he perchance
+bewitched?” she asked the friar, quite seriously. “Do you think that any
+spells might have.”
+
+He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort
+
+“We are at cross purposes here,” he said. “Agostino does not lie. For
+that I will answer.”
+
+“But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them--that I saw them with
+these two eyes--sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his
+arm about her. Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face.”
+
+“Said I ever a word of that?” I appealed me to the friar. “Why, that was
+after Rinolfo left us. My tale never got so far. It is quite true. I did
+sit beside her. The child was troubled. I comforted her. Where was the
+harm?”
+
+“The harm?” quoth he. “And you had your arm about her--and you to be a
+priest one day?”
+
+“And why not, pray?” quoth I. “Is this some new sin that you have
+discovered--or that you have kept hidden from me until now? To
+console the afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our
+fellow-creatures an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself. I was
+performing both. Am I to be abused for that?”
+
+He looked at me very searchingly, seeking in my countenance--as I
+now know--some trace of irony or guile. Finding none, he turned to my
+mother. He was very solemn.
+
+“Madonna,” he said quietly, “I think that Agostino is nearer to being a
+saint than either you or I will ever get.”
+
+She looked at him, first in surprise, then very sadly. Slowly she shook
+her head. “Unhappily for him there is another arbiter of saintship, Who
+sees deeper than do you, Gervasio.”
+
+He bowed his head. “Better not to look deep enough than to do as you
+seem in danger of doing, Madonna, and by looking too deep imagine things
+which do not exist.”
+
+“Ah, you will defend him against reason even,” she complained. “His
+anger exists. His thirst to kill--to stamp himself with the brand of
+Cain--exists. He confesses that himself. His insubordination to me you
+have seen for yourself; and that again is sin, for it is ordained that
+we shall honour our parents.
+
+“O!” she moaned. “My authority is all gone. He is beyond my control. He
+has shaken off the reins by which I sought to guide him.”
+
+“You had done well to have taken my advice a year ago, Madonna. Even now
+it is not too late. Let him go to Pavia, to the Sapienza, to study his
+humanities.”
+
+“Out into the world!” she cried in horror. “O, no, no! I have sheltered
+him here so carefully!”
+
+“Yet you cannot shelter him for ever,” said he. “He must go out into the
+world some day.”
+
+“He need not,” she faltered. “If the call were strong enough within him,
+a convent...” She left her sentence unfinished, and looked at me.
+
+“Go, Agostino,” she bade me. “Fra Gervasio and I must talk.”
+
+I went reluctantly, since in the matter of their talk none could have
+had a greater interest than I, seeing that my fate stood in the balance
+of it. But I went, none the less, and her last words to me as I was
+departing were an injunction that I should spend the time until I should
+take up my studies for the day with Fra Gervasio in seeking forgiveness
+for the morning's sins and grace to do better in the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+I did not again see my mother that day, nor did she sup with us that
+evening. I was told by Fra Gervasio that on my account was she in
+retreat, praying for light and guidance in the thing that must be
+determined concerning me.
+
+I withdrew early to my little bedroom overlooking the gardens, a room
+that had more the air of a monastic cell than a bedchamber fitting the
+estate of the Lord of Mondolfo. The walls were whitewashed, and besides
+the crucifix that hung over my bed, their only decoration was a crude
+painting of St. Augustine disputing with the little boy on the seashore.
+
+For bed I had a plain hard pallet, and the room contained, in addition,
+a wooden chair, a stool upon which was set a steel basin with its ewer
+for my ablutions, and a cupboard for the few sombre black garments I
+possessed--for the amiable vanity of raiment usual in young men of my
+years had never yet assailed me; I had none to emulate in that respect.
+
+I got me to bed, blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep. But
+sleep was playing truant from me. Long I lay there surveying the events
+of that day--the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery of
+myself; the most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which,
+although I scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted love
+and battle, the strongest meats that are in the dish of life.
+
+For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and putting
+together pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softly
+opened, and I started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taper
+which he sheltered with one hand, so that the light of it was thrown
+upwards into his pale, gaunt face.
+
+Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.
+
+“What is it?” I asked.
+
+“Sh!” he admonished me, a finger to his lips. He advanced to my side,
+set down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of my
+bed.
+
+“Lie down again, my son,” he bade me. “I have something to say to you.”
+
+He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet to
+my chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.
+
+“Madonna has decided,” he informed me then. “She fears that having once
+resisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and that
+to keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her. Therefore she
+has resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo.”
+
+A faint excitement began to stir in me. To leave Mondolfo--to go
+out into that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with my
+fellow-man, with youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens like
+Luisina, to see cities and the ways of cities; here indeed was matter
+for excitement. Yet it was an excitement not altogether pleasurable;
+for with my very natural curiosity, and with my eagerness to have it
+gratified, were blended certain fears imbibed from the only quality of
+reading that had been mine.
+
+The world was an evil place in which temptations seethed, and through
+which it was difficult to come unscathed. Therefore, I feared the world
+and the adventuring beyond the shelter of the walls of the castle of
+Mondolfo; and yet I desired to judge for myself the evil of which I
+read, the evil which in moments of doubt I even permitted myself to
+question.
+
+My reasoning followed the syllogism that God being good and God having
+created the world, it was not possible that the creation should be evil.
+It was well enough to say that the devil was loose in it. But that was
+not to say that the devil had created it; and it would be necessary to
+prove this ere it could be established that it was evil in itself--as
+many theologians appeared to seek to show--and a place to be avoided.
+
+Such was the question that very frequently arose in my mind, ultimately
+to be dismissed as a lure of Satan's to imperil my poor soul. It battled
+for existence now amid my fears; and it gained some little ascendancy.
+
+“And whither am I to go?” I asked. “To Pavia, or to the University of
+Bologna?”
+
+“Had my advice been heeded,” said he, “one or the other would have been
+your goal. But your mother took counsel with Messer Arcolano.”
+
+He shrugged, and there was contempt in the lines of his mouth. He
+distrusted Arcolano, the regular cleric who was my mother's confessor
+and spiritual adviser, exerting over her a very considerable influence.
+She, herself, had admitted that it was this Arcolano who had induced
+her to that horrid traffic in my father's life and liberty which she was
+mercifully spared from putting into effect.
+
+“Messer Arcolano,” he resumed after a pause, “has a good friend in
+Piacenza, a pedagogue, a doctor of civil and canon law, a man who, he
+says, is very learned and very pious, named Astorre Fifanti. I have
+heard of this Fifanti, and I do not at all agree with Messer Arcolano. I
+have said so. But your mother...” He broke off. “It is decided that you
+go to him at once, to take up your study of the humanities under his
+tutelage, and that you abide with him until you are of an age for
+ordination, which your mother hopes will be very soon. Indeed, it is
+her wish that you should enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and your
+novitiate next year, to fit you for the habit of St. Augustine.”
+
+He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hear
+what of my own accord I might have to urge. But my mind was incapable
+of travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the world
+to-morrow.
+
+The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from the
+idea to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than my
+mere priesthood had been spoken of. So I lay there without thinking of
+any words in which to answer him.
+
+Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little. “Agostino,” he
+said presently, “you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a step
+whose import you may never fully have considered. I have been your
+tutor, and your rearing has been my charge. That charge I have
+faithfully carried out as was ordained me, but not as I would have
+carried it out had I been free to follow my heart and my conscience in
+the matter.
+
+“The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mind
+that you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your own
+inherent desire. I would have you consider it well now that the time
+approaches for a step which is irrevocable.”
+
+His words and his manner startled me alike.
+
+“How?” I cried. “Do you say that it might be better if I did not seek
+ordination? What better can the world offer than the priesthood? Have
+you not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?”
+
+“To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master,
+becoming in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation,
+of self-sacrifice and purity,” he answered slowly, “that is the noblest
+thing a man can be. But to be a bad priest--there are other ways of
+being damned less hurtful to the Church.”
+
+“To be a bad priest?” quoth I. “Is it possible to be a bad priest?”
+
+“It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.
+Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.
+Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolis
+of the Living. Others, Agostino--and these are men most worthy of
+pity--enter the Church because they are driven to it in youth by
+ill-advised parents. I would not have you one of these, my son.”
+
+I stared at him, my amazement ever growing. “Do you... do you think I am
+in danger of it?” I asked.
+
+“That is a question you must answer for yourself. No man can know what
+is in another's heart. I have trained you as I was bidden train you. I
+have seen you devout, increasing in piety, and yet...” He paused, and
+looked at me again. “It may be that this is no more than the fruit
+of your training; it may be that your piety and devotion are purely
+intellectual. It is very often so. Men know the precepts of religion
+as a lawyer knows the law. It no more follows out of that that they are
+religious--though they conceive that it does--than it follows that a
+lawyer is law-abiding. It is in the acts of their lives that we must
+seek their real natures, and no single act of your life, Agostino, has
+yet given sign that the call is in your heart.
+
+“To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with the
+world, you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that you
+did not kill is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg. I
+do not say that you did a very sinful thing. In a worldly youth of your
+years the provocation you received would have more than justified
+your action. But not in one who aims at a life of humility and
+self-forgetfulness such as the priesthood imposes.”
+
+“And yet,” said I, “I heard you tell my mother below stairs that I was
+nearer sainthood than either of you.”
+
+He smiled sadly, and shook his head. “They were rash words, Agostino. I
+mistook ignorance for purity--a common error. I have pondered it since,
+and my reflection brings me to utter what in this household amounts to
+treason.”
+
+“I do not understand,” I confessed.
+
+“My duty to your mother I have discharged more faithfully perhaps than I
+had the right to do. My duty to my God I am discharging now, although
+to you I may rather appear as an advocatus diaboli. This duty is to warn
+you; to bid you consider well the step you are to take.
+
+“Listen, Agostino. I am speaking to you out of the bitter experience of
+a very cruel life. I would not have you tread the path I have trodden.
+It seldom leads to happiness in this world or the next; it seldom leads
+anywhere but straight to Hell.”
+
+He paused, and I looked into his haggard face in utter stupefaction
+to hear such words from the lips of one whom I had ever looked upon as
+goodness incarnate.
+
+“Had I not known that some day I must speak to you as I am speaking now,
+I had long since abandoned a task which I did not consider good. But I
+feared to leave you. I feared that if I were removed my place might be
+taken by some time-server who to earn a livelihood would tutor you as
+your mother would have you tutored, and thrust you forth without warning
+upon the life to which you have been vowed.
+
+“Once, years ago, I was on the point of resisting your mother.” He
+passed a hand wearily across his brow. “It was on the night that Gino
+Falcone left us, driven forth by her because she accounted it her duty.
+Do you remember, Agostino?”
+
+“O, I remember!” I answered.
+
+“That night,” he pursued, “I was angered--righteously angered to see
+so wicked and unchristian an act performed in blasphemous
+self-righteousness. I was on the point of denouncing the deed as it
+deserved, of denouncing your mother for it to her face. And then I
+remembered you. I remembered the love I had borne your father, and my
+duty to him, to see that no such wrong was done you in the end as that
+which I feared. I reflected that if I spoke the words that were burning
+my tongue for utterance, I should go as Gino Falcone had gone.
+
+“Not that the going mattered. I could better save my soul elsewhere than
+here in this atmosphere of Christianity misunderstood; and there
+are always convents of my order to afford me shelter. But your being
+abandoned mattered; and I felt that if I went, abandoned you would be to
+the influences that drove and moulded you without consideration for
+your nature and your inborn inclinations. Therefore I remained, and left
+Falcone's cause unchampioned. Later I was to learn that he had found a
+friend, and that he was... that he was being cared for.”
+
+“By whom?” quoth I, more interested perhaps in this than in anything
+that he had yet said.
+
+“By one who was your father's friend,” he said, after a moment's
+hesitation, “a soldier of fortune by name of Galeotto--a leader of free
+lances who goes by the name of Il Gran Galeotto. But let that be. I want
+to tell you of myself, that you may judge with what authority I speak.
+
+“I was destined,” Agostino, for a soldier's life in the following of my
+valiant foster-brother, your father. Had I preserved the strength of
+my early youth, undoubtedly a soldier's harness would be strapped here
+to-day in the place of this scapulary. But it happened that an illness
+left me sickly and ailing, and unfitted me utterly for such a life.
+Similarly it unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that I
+threatened to become a useless burden upon my parents, who were
+peasant-folk. To avoid this they determined to make a monk of me; they
+offered me to God because they found me unfitted for the service of man;
+and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk, they accounted that in doing so
+they did a good and pious thing.
+
+“I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things I
+studied; I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to the
+future; I submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, and
+before I awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, I
+was in orders.”
+
+He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--“For ten years
+thereafter, Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle
+a knotted length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung
+and chafed me and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodily
+ease or proper rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection my
+rebellious flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to
+me must have been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I not
+been devout and strong in my devotion I could never have endured what
+I was forced to endure as the alternative to damnation, because without
+consideration for my nature I had been ordained a priest.
+
+“Consider this, Agostino; consider it well. I would not have you go that
+way, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur.
+Because I know--I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and thanking
+God for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me--that for
+one priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such agonizing
+means, a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of their
+example they drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the hands of
+her enemies, which is a still heavier reckoning to meet hereafter.”
+
+A spell of silence followed. I was strangely moved by his tale,
+strangely impressed by the warning that I perceived in it. And yet my
+confidence, I think, was all unshaken.
+
+And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedside
+to ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed my
+confidence in my answer.
+
+“It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed,” I said. “The life
+that will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I would
+follow.”
+
+He looked at me long and sadly. “You must do as your heart bids you,” he
+sighed. “And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learnt
+to speak to you more plainly.” And upon that he left me.
+
+Next day I set out.
+
+My leave-takings were brief. My mother shed some tears and many prayers
+over me at parting. Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me.
+That were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I should
+treasure as a sacred thing. Her tears were tears of dread lest,
+surrounded by perils in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify her
+vows.
+
+She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me.
+Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilment
+of her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered. To the price
+that later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave a
+single thought.
+
+Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio. My mother had suffered
+me to do no more than kiss her hand--as was my custom. But the friar
+took me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms.
+
+“Remember!” he murmured huskily and impressively. And then, putting me
+from him, “God help and guide you, my son,” were his last words.
+
+I went down the steps into the courtyard where most of the servants were
+gathered to see their lord's departure, whilst Messer Arcolano, who was
+to go with me, paused to assure my mother of the care that he would have
+of me, and to receive her final commands concerning me.
+
+Four men, mounted and armed, stood waiting to escort us, and with
+them were three mules, one for Arcolano, one for myself, and the third
+already laden with my baggage.
+
+A servant held my stirrup, and I swung myself up into the saddle, with
+which I was but indifferently acquainted. Then Arcolano mounted too,
+puffing over the effort, for he was a corpulent, rubicund man with the
+fattest hands I have ever seen.
+
+I touched my mule with the whip, and the beast began to move. Arcolano
+ambled beside me; and behind us, abreast, came the men-at-arms. Thus
+we rode down towards the gateway, and as we went the servants murmured
+their valedictory words.
+
+“A safe journey, Madonnino!”
+
+“A good return, Madonnino!”
+
+I smiled back at them, and in the eyes of more than one I detected a
+look of commiseration.
+
+Once I turned, when the end of the quadrangle was reached, and I waved
+my cap to my mother and Fra Gervasio, who stood upon the steps where I
+had left them. The friar responded by waving back to me. But my mother
+made no sign. Likely enough her eyes were upon the ground again already
+
+Her unresponsiveness almost angered me. I felt that a man had the right
+to some slight display of tenderness from the woman who had borne him.
+Her frigidity wounded me. It wounded me the more in comparison with the
+affectionate clasp of old Gervasio's arms. With a knot in my throat I
+passed from the sunlight of the courtyard into the gloom of the gateway,
+and out again beyond, upon the drawbridge. Our hooves thudded briskly
+upon the timbers, and then with a sharper note upon the cobbles beyond.
+
+I was outside the walls of the castle for the first time. Before me the
+long, rudely paved street of the borgo sloped away to the market-place
+of the town of Mondolfo. Beyond that lay the world, itself--all at my
+feet, as I imagined.
+
+The knot in my throat was dissolved. My pulses quickened with
+anticipation. I dug my heels into the mule's belly and pushed on, the
+portly cleric at my side.
+
+And thus I left my home and the gloomy, sorrowful influence of my most
+dolorous mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. GIULIANA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI. Let me not follow in too close
+detail the incidents of that journey lest I be in danger of becoming
+tedious. In themselves they contained laughable matter enough, but in
+the mere relation they may seem dull.
+
+Down the borgo, ahead of us, ran the rumour that here was the Madonnino
+of Mondolfo, and the excitement that the announcement caused was
+something at which I did not know whether to be flattered or offended.
+
+The houses gave up their inhabitants, and all stood at gaze as we
+passed, to behold for the first time this lord of theirs of whom they
+had heard Heaven knows what stories--for where there are elements of
+mystery human invention can be very active.
+
+At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon
+the glossy neck of my mule. Very soon, however, growing accustomed to
+being stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became
+a trouble to Messer Arcolano. For as I looked about me there were a
+hundred things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer
+inspection.
+
+We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a
+market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val
+di Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
+
+I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time
+that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before
+me, making way invitingly. But Messer Arcolano urged me along, saying
+that we had far to go, and that in Piacenza there were better shops and
+that I should have more time to view them.
+
+Then it was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my
+eye--Durfreno's arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon--and I must
+draw rein and cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work,
+plaguing Arcolano with a score of questions concerning the identity of
+the main figure and how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and
+whether he had succeeded in the end in his attempt to strangle it.
+
+Arcolano, out of patience by now, answered me shortly that the reptile
+was the sculptor's pious symbolization of sin, which St. Hercules was
+overcoming.
+
+I am by no means sure that such was not indeed his own conception of the
+matter, and that there did not exist in his mind some confusion as to
+whether the pagan demigod had a place in the Calendar or not. For he was
+an uncultured, plebeian fellow, and what my mother should have found
+in him to induce her to prefer him for her confessor and spiritual
+counsellor to the learned Fra Gervasio is one more of the many mysteries
+which an attempt to understand her must ever present to me.
+
+Then there were the young peasant girls who thronged about and stood in
+groups, blushing furiously under my glance, which Arcolano vainly
+bade me lower. A score of times did it seem to me that one of these
+brown-legged, lithe, comely creatures was my little Luisina; and more
+than once I was on the point of addressing one or another, to discover
+my mistake and be admonished for my astounding frivolousness by Messer
+Arcolano.
+
+And when once or twice I returned the friendly laughter of these girls,
+whilst the grinning serving-men behind me would nudge one another and
+wink to see me--as they thought--so very far off the road to priesthood
+to which I was vowed, hot anathema poured from the fat cleric's lips,
+and he urged me roughly to go faster.
+
+His tortures ended at last when we came into the open country. We rode
+in silence for a mile or two, I being full of thought of all that I had
+seen, and infected a little by the fever of life through which I had
+just passed. At last, I remember that I turned to Arcolano, who was
+riding with the ears of his mule in line with my saddle-bow, and asked
+him to point out to me where my dominions ended.
+
+The meek question provoked an astonishingly churlish answer. I was
+shortly bidden to give my mind to other than worldly things; and with
+that he began a homily, which lasted for many a weary mile, upon the
+vanities of the world and the glories of Paradise--a homily of the very
+tritest, upon subjects whereupon I, myself, could have dilated to better
+purpose than could His Ignorance.
+
+The distance from Mondolfo to Piacenza is a good eight leagues, and
+though we had set out very early, it was past noon before we caught our
+first glimpse of the city by the Po, lying low as it does in the vast
+Aemilian plain, and Arcolano set himself to name to me this church and
+that whose spires stood out against the cobalt background of the sky.
+
+An hour or so after our first glimpse of the city, our weary beasts
+brought us up to the Gate of San Lazzaro. But we did not enter, as I
+had hoped. Messer Arcolano had had enough of me and my questions at
+Mondolfo, and he was not minded to expose himself to worse behaviour on
+my part in the more interesting thoroughfares of this great city.
+
+So we passed it by, and rode under the very walls by way of an avenue
+of flowering chestnuts, round to the northern side, until we emerged
+suddenly upon the sands of Po, and I had my first view at close quarters
+of that mighty river flowing gently about the islands, all thick with
+willows, that seemed to float upon its gleaming waters.
+
+Fishermen were at work in a boat out in mid-stream, heaving their nets
+to the sound of the oddest cantilena, and I was all for pausing there
+to watch their operations. But Arcolano urged me onward with that
+impatience of his which took no account of my very natural curiosity.
+Presently I drew rein again with exclamations of delight and surprise to
+see the wonderful bridge of boats that spanned the river a little higher
+up.
+
+But we had reached our destination. Arcolano called a halt at the gates
+of a villa that stood a little way back from the road on slightly rising
+ground near the Fodesta Gate. He bade one of the grooms get down and
+open, and presently we ambled up a short avenue between tall banks of
+laurel, to the steps of the villa itself.
+
+It was a house of fair proportions, though to me at the time, accustomed
+to the vast spaces of Mondolfo, it seemed the merest hut. It was painted
+white, and it had green Venetian shutters which gave it a cool and
+pleasant air; and through one of the open windows floated a sound of
+merry voices, in which a woman's laugh was predominant.
+
+The double doors stood open and through these there emerged a moment
+after our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us
+swiftly, whose thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano
+in the pause he made before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of
+ill-fitting shoes.
+
+This was Messer Astorre Fifanti, the pedant under whom I was to study,
+and with whom I was to take up my residence for some months to come.
+
+Seeing in him one who was to be set in authority over me, I surveyed him
+with the profoundest interest, and from that instant I disliked him.
+
+He was, as I have said, a tall, thin man; and he had long hands
+that were very big and bony in the knuckles. Indeed they looked like
+monstrous skeleton hands with a glove of skin stretched over them. He
+was quite bald, save for a curly grizzled fringe that surrounded the
+back of his head, on a level with his enormous ears, and his forehead
+ran up to the summit of his egg-shaped head. His nose was pendulous and
+his eyes were closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty. He wore
+no beard, and his leathery cheeks were blue from the razor. His age
+may have been fifty; his air was mean and sycophantic. Finally he was
+dressed in a black gaberdine that descended to his knees, and he ended
+in a pair of the leanest shanks and largest feet conceivable.
+
+To greet us he fawned and washed his bony hands in the air.
+
+“You have made a safe journey, then,” he purred. “Benedicamus Dominum!”
+
+“Deo gratias!” rumbled the fat priest, as he heaved his rotundity from
+the saddle with the assistance of one of the grooms.
+
+They shook hands, and Fifanti turned to survey me for the second time.
+
+“And this is my noble charge!” said he. “Salve! Be welcome to my house,
+Messer Agostino.”
+
+I got to earth, accepted his proffered hand, and thanked him.
+
+Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came
+hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors.
+
+I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time
+Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too,
+of some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon
+which he desired the priest's rare judgment.
+
+Arcolano hesitated, and his gluttonous mouth quivered and twitched. But
+he excused himself in the end. He must on. He had business to discharge
+in the town, and he must return at once and render an account of our
+safe journey to the Countess at Mondolfo. If he tarried now it would
+grow late ere he reached Mondolfo, and late travelling pleased him not
+at all. As it was his bones would be weary and his flesh tender from so
+much riding; but he would offer it up to Heaven for his sins.
+
+And when the too-amiable Fifanti had protested how little there could
+be the need in the case of one so saintly as Messer Arcolano, the
+priest made his farewells. He gave me his blessing and enjoined upon me
+obedience to one who stood to me in loco parentis, heaved himself back
+on to his mule, and departed with the grooms at his heels.
+
+Then Doctor Fifanti set a bony hand upon my shoulder, and opined that
+after my journey I must be in need of refreshment; and with that he led
+me within doors, assuring me that in his house the needs of the body
+were as closely cared for as the needs of the mind.
+
+“For an empty belly,” he ended with his odious, sycophantic geniality,
+“makes an empty heart and an empty head.”
+
+We passed through a hall that was prettily paved in mosaics, into a
+chamber of good proportions, which seemed gay to me after the gloom by
+which I had been surrounded.
+
+The ceiling was painted blue and flecked with golden stars, whilst the
+walls were hung with deep blue tapestries on which was figured in grey
+and brownish red a scene which, I was subsequently to learn, represented
+the metamorphosis of Actaeon. At the moment I did not look too closely.
+The figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused
+me quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes.
+
+A good-sized table stood in the middle of the floor, bearing, upon a
+broad strip of embroidered white napery, sparkling crystal and silver,
+vessels of wine and platters of early fruits. About it sat a very noble
+company of some half-dozen men and two very resplendent women. One of
+these was slight and little, very dark and vivacious with eyes full of
+a malicious humour. The other, of very noble proportions, of a fine,
+willowy height, with coiled ropes of hair of a colour such as I had
+never dreamed could be found upon human being. It was ruddy and glowed
+like metal. Her face and neck--and of the latter there was a very
+considerable display--were of the warm pale tint of old ivory. She had
+large, low-lidded eyes, which lent her face a languid air. Her brow was
+low and broad, and her lips of a most startling red against the pallor
+of the rest.
+
+She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow
+smile, holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous
+welcome.
+
+“This, Ser Agostino,” said Fifanti, “is my wife.”
+
+Had he announced her to be his daughter it would have been more credible
+on the score of their respective years, though equally incredible on the
+score of their respective personalities.
+
+I gaped foolishly in my amazement, a little dazzled, too, by the
+effulgence of her eyes, which were now raised to the level of my own. I
+lowered my glance abashed, and answered her as courteously as I could.
+Then she led me to the table, and presented me to the company, naming
+each to me.
+
+The first was a slim and very dainty young gentleman in a scarlet
+walking-suit, over which he wore a long scarlet mantle. A gold cross was
+suspended from his neck by a massive chain of gold. He was delicately
+featured, with a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair
+hair that fell in waves about his effeminate face. He had the whitest
+of hands, very delicately veined in blue, and it was--as I soon
+observed--his habit to carry them raised, so that the blood might not
+flow into them to coarsen their beauty. Attached to his left wrist by a
+fine chain was a gold pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very
+beautifully chiselled. Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous
+sapphire ring of his rank.
+
+That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from
+being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence--never dreaming
+that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a
+guest so exalted.
+
+He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of
+Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
+
+The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed
+personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had
+pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.
+
+He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of
+the man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing
+his ring. I knelt to kiss it, overawed by his ecclesiastical rank,
+however little awed by the man within it.
+
+As I rose again he looked up at me considering my inches.
+
+“Why,” said he, “here is a fine soldier lost to glory.” And as he spoke,
+he half turned to a young man who sat beside him, a man at whom I was
+eager to take a fuller look, for his face was most strangely familiar to
+me.
+
+He was tall and graceful, very beautifully dressed in purple and gold,
+and his blue-black hair was held in a net or coif of finest gold thread.
+His garments clung as tightly and smoothly as if he had been kneaded
+into them--as, indeed, he had. But it was his face that held my eyes. It
+was a sun-tanned, shaven hawk-face with black level brows, black eyes,
+and a strong jaw, handsome save for something displeasing in the lines
+of the mouth, something sardonic, proud, and contemptuous.
+
+The Cardinal addressed him. “You breed fine fellows in your family,
+Cosimo,” were the words with which he startled me, and then I knew where
+I had seen that face before. In my mirror.
+
+He was as like me--save that he was blacker and not so tall--as if he
+had been own brother to me instead of merely cousin as I knew at once
+he was. For he must be that guelphic Anguissola renegade who served
+the Pope and was high in favour with Farnese, and Captain of Justice in
+Piacenza. In age he may have been some seven or eight years older than
+myself.
+
+I stared at him now with interest, and I found attractions in him, the
+chief of which was his likeness to my father. So must my father have
+looked when he was this fellow's age. He returned my glance with a smile
+that did not improve his countenance, so contemptuously languid was it,
+so very supercilious.
+
+“You may stare, cousin,” said he, “for I think I do you the honour to be
+something like you.”
+
+“You will find him,” lisped the Cardinal to me, “the most
+self-complacent dog in Italy. When he sees in you a likeness to himself
+he flatters himself grossly, which, as you know him better, you will
+discover to be his inveterate habit. He is his own most assiduous
+courtier.” And my Lord Gambara sank back into his chair, languishing,
+the pomander to his nostrils.
+
+All laughed, and Messer Cosimo with them, still considering me.
+
+But Messer Fifanti's wife had yet to make me known to three others who
+sat there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady. This last was a cousin of
+her own--Donna Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for the first and
+last time.
+
+The three remaining men of the company are of little interest save one,
+whose name was to be well known--nay, was well known already, though not
+to one who had lived in such seclusion as mine.
+
+This was that fine poet Annibale Caro, whom I have heard judged to be
+all but the equal of the great Petrarca himself. A man who had less the
+air of a poet it would not be easy to conceive. He was of middle height
+and of a habit of body inclining to portliness, and his age may have
+been forty. His face was bearded, ruddy, and small-featured, and there
+was about him an air of smug prosperity; he was dressed with care, but
+he had none of the splendour of the Cardinal or my cousin. Let me add
+that he was secretary to the Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and that he was
+here in Piacenza on a mission to the Governor in which his master's
+interests were concerned.
+
+The other two who completed that company are of no account, and indeed
+their names escape me, though I seem to remember that one was named
+Pacini and that he was said to be a philosopher of considerable parts.
+
+Bidden to table by Messer Fifanti, I took the chair he offered me beside
+his lady, and presently came the old servant whom already I had seen,
+bearing meat for me. I was hungry, and I fell to with zest, what time
+a pleasant ripple of talk ran round the board. Facing me sat my cousin,
+and I never observed until my hunger was become less clamorous with what
+an insistence he regarded me. At last, however, our eyes met across the
+board. He smiled that crooked, somewhat unpleasant smile of his.
+
+“And so, Ser Agostino, they are to make a priest of you?” said he.
+
+“God pleasing,” I answered soberly, and perhaps shortly.
+
+“And if his brains at all resemble his body,” lisped the
+Cardinal-legate, “you may live to see an Anguissola Pope, my Cosimo.”
+
+My stare must have betrayed my amazement at such words. “Not so,
+magnificent,” I made answer. “I am destined for the life monastic.”
+
+“Monastic!” quoth he, in a sort of horror, and looking as if a bad smell
+had suddenly been thrust under his nose. He shrugged and pouted and
+had fresh recourse to his pomander. “O, well! Friars have become popes
+before to-day.”
+
+“I am to enter the hermit order of St. Augustine,” I again corrected.
+
+“Ah!” said Caro, in his big, full voice. “He aspires not to Rome but to
+Heaven, my lord.”
+
+“Then what the devil does he in your house, Fifanti?” quoth the
+Cardinal. “Are you to teach him sanctity?”
+
+And the table shook with laughter at a jest I did not understand any
+more than I understood my Lord Cardinal.
+
+Messer Fifanti, sitting at the table-head, shot me a glance of anxious
+inquiry; he smiled foolishly, and washed his hands in the air again, his
+mind fumbling for an answer that should turn aside that barbed jest. But
+he was forestalled by my cousin Cosimo.
+
+“The teaching might come more aptly from Monna Giuliana,” said he, and
+smiled very boldly across at Fifanti's lady who sat beside me, whilst a
+frown grew upon the prodigious brow of the pedant.
+
+“Indeed, indeed,” the Cardinal murmured, considering her through
+half-closed eyes, “there is no man but may enter Paradise at her
+bidding.” And he sighed furiously, whilst she chid him for his boldness;
+and for all that much of what they said was in a language that might
+have been unknown to me, yet was I lost in amazement to see a prelate
+made so free with. She turned to me, and the glory of her eyes fell
+about my soul like an effulgence.
+
+“Do not heed them, Ser Agostino. They are profane and wicked men,”
+ she said, “and if you aspire to holiness, the less you see of them the
+better will it be for you.”
+
+I did not doubt it, yet I dared not make so bold as to confess it, and I
+wondered why they should laugh to hear her earnest censure of them.
+
+“It is a thorny path, this path of holiness,” said the Cardinal sighing.
+
+“Your excellency has been told so, we assume,” quoth Caro, who had a
+very bitter tongue for one who looked so well-nourished and contented.
+
+“I might have found it so for myself but that my lot has been cast among
+sinners,” answered the Cardinal, comprehending the company in his glance
+and gesture. “As it is, I do what I can to mend their lot.”
+
+“Now here is gallantry of a different sort!” cried the little Leocadia
+with a giggle.
+
+“O, as to that,” quoth Cosimo, showing his fine teeth in a smile, “there
+is a proverb as to the gallantry of priests. It is like the love of
+women, which again is like water in a basket--as soon in as out.” And
+his eyes hung upon Giuliana.
+
+“When you are the basket, sir captain, shall anyone blame the women?”
+ she countered with her lazy insolence.
+
+“Body of God!” cried the Cardinal, and laughed wholeheartedly, whilst
+my cousin scowled. “There you have the truth, Cosimo, and the truth is
+better than proverbs.”
+
+“It is unlucky to speak of the dead at table,” put in Caro.
+
+“And who spoke of the dead, Messer Annibale?” quoth Leocadia.
+
+“Did not my Lord Cardinal mention Truth?” answered the brutal poet.
+
+“You are a derider--a gross sinner,” said the Cardinal languidly. “Stick
+to your verses, man, and leave Truth alone.”
+
+“Agreed--if your excellency will stick to Truth and quit writing verses.
+I offer the compact in the interest of humanity, which will be the
+gainer.”
+
+The company shook with laughter at this direct and offensive hit. But my
+Lord Gambara seemed nowise incensed. Indeed, I was beginning to conclude
+that the man had a sweetness and tolerance of nature that bordered on
+the saintly.
+
+He sipped his wine thoughtfully, and held it up to the light so that the
+deep ruby of it sparkled in the Venetian crystal.
+
+“You remind me that I have written a new song,” said he.
+
+“Then have I sinned indeed,” groaned Caro.
+
+But Gambara, disregarding the interruption, his glass still raised, his
+mild eyes upon the wine, began to recite:
+
+     “Bacchus saepe visitans
+      Mulierum genus
+      Facit eas subditas
+      Tibi, O tu Venus!”
+
+Without completely understanding it, yet scandalized beyond measure at
+as much as I understood, to hear such sentiments upon his priestly lips,
+I stared at him in candid horror.
+
+But he got no farther. Caro smote the table with his fist.
+
+“When wrote you that, my lord?” he cried.
+
+“When?” quoth the Cardinal, frowning at the interruption. “Why,
+yestereve.”
+
+“Ha!” It was something between a bark and a laugh from Messer Caro. “In
+that case, my lord, memory usurped the place of invention. That song was
+sung at Pavia when I was a student--which is more years ago than I care
+to think of.”
+
+The Cardinal smiled upon him, unabashed. “And what then, pray? Can we
+avoid these things? Why, the very Virgil whom you plagiarize so freely
+was himself a plagiarist.”
+
+Now this, as you may well conceive, provoked a discussion about the
+board, in which all joined, not excepting Fifanti's lady and Donna
+Leocadia.
+
+I listened in some amazement and deep interest to matters that were
+entirely strange to me, to the arguing of mysteries which seemed to
+me--even from what I heard of them--to be strangely attractive.
+
+Anon Fifanti joined in the discussion, and I observed how as soon as he
+began to speak they all fell silent, all listened to him as to a master,
+what time he delivered himself of his opinions and criticisms of this
+Virgil, with a force, a lucidity and an eloquence that revealed his
+learning even to one so ignorant as myself.
+
+He was listened to with deference by all, if we except perhaps my Lord
+Gambara, who had no respect for anything and who preferred to whisper
+to Leocadia under cover of his hand, ogling her what time she simpered.
+Once or twice Monna Giuliana flashed him an unfriendly glance, and this
+I accounted natural, deeming that she resented this lack of attention to
+the erudite dissertation of her husband.
+
+But as for the others, they were attentive, as I have said, and even
+Messer Caro, who at the time--as I gathered then--was engaged upon
+a translation of Virgil into Tuscan, and who, therefore, might be
+accounted something of an authority, held his peace and listened what
+time the doctor reasoned and discoursed.
+
+Fifanti's mean, sycophantic air fell away from him as by magic. Warmed
+by his subject and his enthusiasm he seemed suddenly ennobled, and I
+found him less antipathic; indeed, I began to see something admirable in
+the man, some of that divine quality that only deep culture and learning
+can impart.
+
+I conceived that now, at last, I held the explanation of how it came to
+pass that so distinguished a company frequented his house and gathered
+on such familiar terms about his board.
+
+And I began to be less amazed at the circumstance that he should possess
+for wife so beautiful and superb a creature as Madonna Giuliana. I
+thought that I obtained glimpses of the charm which that elderly man
+might be able to exert upon a fine and cultured young nature with
+aspirations for things above the commonplace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. HUMANITIES
+
+
+As the days passed and swelled into weeks, and these, in their turn,
+accumulated into months, I grew rapidly learned in worldly matters at
+Doctor Fifanti's house.
+
+The curriculum I now pursued was so vastly different from that which my
+mother had bidden Fra Gervasio to set me, and my acquaintance with the
+profane writers advanced so swiftly once it was engaged upon, that I
+acquired knowledge as a weed grows.
+
+Fifanti flung into strange passions when he discovered the extent of my
+ignorance and the amazing circumstance that whilst Fra Gervasio had made
+of me a fluent Latin scholar, he had kept me in utter ignorance of the
+classic writers, and almost in as great an ignorance of history itself.
+This the pedant set himself at once to redress, and amongst the earliest
+works he gave me as preparation were Latin translations of Thucydides
+and Herodotus which I devoured--especially the glowing pages of the
+latter--at a speed that alarmed my tutor.
+
+But mere studiousness was not my spur, as he imagined. I was enthralled
+by the novelty of the matters that I read, so different from all those
+with which I had been allowed to become acquainted hitherto.
+
+There followed Tacitus, and after him Cicero and Livy, which latter two
+I found less arresting; then came Lucretius, and his De Rerum Naturae
+proved a succulent dish to my inquisitive appetite.
+
+But the cream and glory of the ancient writers I had yet to taste. My
+first acquaintance with the poets came from the translation of Virgil
+upon which Messer Caro was at the time engaged. He had definitely taken
+up his residence in Piacenza, whither it was said that Farnese, his
+master, who was to be made our Duke, would shortly come. And in the
+interval of labouring for Farnese, as Caro was doing, he would toil at
+his translation, and from time to time he would bring sheaves of his
+manuscript to the doctor's house, to read what he had accomplished.
+
+He came, I remember, one languid afternoon in August, when I had been
+with Messer Fifanti for close upon three months, during which time my
+mind had gradually, yet swiftly, been opening out like a bud under the
+sunlight of much new learning. We sat in the fine garden behind the
+house, on the lawn, in the shade of mulberry trees laden with yellow
+translucent fruit, by a pond that was all afloat with water-lilies.
+
+There was a crescent-shaped seat of hewn marble, over which Messer
+Gambara, who was with us, had thrown his scarlet cardinal's cloak, the
+day being oppressively hot. He was as usual in plain, walking clothes,
+and save for the ring on his finger and the cross on his breast, you
+had never conceived him an ecclesiastic. He sat near his cloak, upon
+the marble seat, and beside him sat Monna Giuliana, who was all in white
+save for the gold girdle at her waist.
+
+Caro, himself, stood to read, his bulky manuscript in his hands. Against
+the sundial, facing the poet, leaned the tall figure of Messer Fifanti,
+his bald head uncovered and shining humidly, his eyes ever and anon
+stealing a look at his splendid wife where she sat so demurely at the
+prelate's side.
+
+Myself, I lay on the grass near the pond, my hand trailing in the cool
+water, and at first I was not greatly interested. The heat of the day
+and the circumstance that we had dined, when played upon by the poet's
+booming and somewhat monotonous voice, had a lulling effect from which
+I was in danger of falling asleep. But anon, as the narrative warmed
+and quickened, the danger was well overpast. I was very wide-awake, my
+pulses throbbing, my imagination all on fire. I sat up and listened
+with an enthralled attention, unconscious of everything and everybody,
+unconscious even of the very voice of the reader, intent only upon the
+amazing, tragic matter that he read.
+
+For it happened that this was the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, and the
+most lamentable, heartrending story of Dido's love for Aeneas, of his
+desertion of her, of her grief and death upon the funeral pyre.
+
+It held me spellbound. It was more real then anything that I had ever
+read or heard; and the fate of Dido moved me as if I had known and loved
+her; so that long ere Messer Caro came to an end I was weeping freely in
+a most exquisite misery.
+
+Thereafter I was as one who has tasted strong wine and finds his thirst
+fired by it. Within a week I had read the Aeneid through, and was
+reading it a second time. Then came the Comedies of Terence, the
+Metamorphoses of Ovid, Martial, and the Satires of Juvenal. And
+with those my transformation was complete. No longer could I find
+satisfaction in the writings of the fathers of the church, or in
+contemplating the lives of the saints, after the pageantries which the
+eyes of my soul had looked upon in the profane authors.
+
+What instructions my mother supposed Fifanti to have received concerning
+me from Arcolano, I cannot think. But certain it is that she could never
+have dreamed under what influences I was so soon to come, no more than
+she could conceive what havoc they played with all that hitherto I had
+learnt and with the resolutions that I had formed--and that she had
+formed for me--concerning the future.
+
+All this reading perturbed me very oddly, as one is perturbed who having
+long dwelt in darkness is suddenly brought into the sunlight and dazzled
+by it, so that, grown conscious of his sight, he is more effectively
+blinded than he was before. For the process that should have been a
+gradual one from tender years was carried through in what amounted to
+little more than a few weeks.
+
+My Lord Gambara took an odd interest in me. He was something of
+a philosopher in his trivial way; something of a student of his
+fellow-man; and he looked upon me as an odd human growth that was being
+subjected to an unusual experiment. I think he took a certain delight in
+helping that experiment forward; and certain it is that he had more to
+do with the debauching of my mind than any other, or than any reading
+that I did.
+
+It was not that he told me more than elsewhere I could have learnt; it
+was the cynical manner in which he conveyed his information. He had a
+way of telling me of monstrous things as if they were purely normal and
+natural to a properly focussed eye, and as if any monstrousness they
+might present to me were due to some distortion imparted to them solely
+by the imperfection of my intellectual vision.
+
+Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning
+Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on
+whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy
+of Parma and Piacenza.
+
+One day as we walked together in the garden--my Lord Gambara and I--I
+asked him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
+
+“His claim?” quoth he, checking, to give me a long, cool stare. He
+laughed shortly and resumed his pacing, I keeping step with him. “Why,
+is he not the Pope's son, and is not that claim enough?”
+
+“The Pope's son!” I exclaimed. “But how is it possible that the Holy
+Father should have a son?”
+
+“How is it possible?” he echoed mockingly. “Why, I will tell you, sir.
+When our present Holy Father went as Cardinal-legate to the Mark of
+Ancona, he met there a certain lady whose name was Lola, who pleased
+him, and who was pleased with him. Alessandro Farnese was a handsome
+man, Ser Agostino. She bore him three children, of whom one is dead,
+another is Madonna Costanza, who is wed to Sforza of Santafiora, and the
+third--who really happens to have been the first-born--is Messer Pier
+Luigi, present Duke of Castro and future Duke of Piacenza.”
+
+It was some time ere I could speak.
+
+“But his vows, then?” I exclaimed at last.
+
+“Ah! His vows!” said the Cardinal-legate. “True, there were his vows.
+I had forgotten that. No doubt he did the same.” And he smiled
+sardonically, sniffing at his pomander-ball.
+
+From that beginning in a fresh branch of knowledge much followed
+quickly. Under my questionings, Messer Gambara very readily made me
+acquainted through his unsparing eyes with that cesspool that was known
+as the Roman Curia. And my horror, my disillusionment increased at every
+word he said.
+
+I learnt from him that Pope Paul III was no exception to the rule, no
+such scandal as I had imagined; that his own elevation to the purple was
+due in origin to the favour which his sister, the beautiful Giulia, had
+found in the eyes of the Borgia Pope, some fifty years ago. Through him
+I came to know the Sacred College as it really was; not the very home
+and fount of Christianity, as I had deemed it, controlled and guided
+by men of a sublime saintliness of ways, but a gathering of ambitious
+worldlings, who had become so brazen in their greed of temporal power
+that they did not even trouble to cloak the sin and evil in which they
+lived; men in whom the spirit that had actuated those saints the study
+of whose lives had been my early delight, lived no more than it might
+live in the bosom of a harlot.
+
+I said so to him one day in a wild, furious access of boldness, in one
+of those passionate outbursts that are begotten of illusions blighted.
+
+He heard me through quite calmly, without the least trace of anger,
+smiling ever his quiet mocking smile, and plucking at his little, auburn
+beard.
+
+“You are wrong, I think,” he said. “Say that the Church has fallen
+a prey to self-seekers who have entered it under the cloak of the
+priesthood. What then? In their hands the Church has been enriched. She
+has gained power, which she must retain. And that is to the Church's
+good.”
+
+“And what of the scandal of it?” I stormed.
+
+“O, as to that--why, boy, have you never read Boccaccio?”
+
+“Never,” said I.
+
+“Read him, then,” he urged me. “He will teach you much that you need
+to know. And read in particular the story of Abraam, the Jew, who upon
+visiting Rome was so scandalized by the licence and luxury of the
+clergy that he straightway had himself baptized and became a Christian,
+accounting that a religion that could survive such wiles of Satan to
+destroy it must indeed be the true religion, divinely inspired.” He
+laughed his little cynical laugh to see my confusion increased by that
+bitter paradox.
+
+It is little wonder that I was all bewildered, that I was like some poor
+mariner upon unknown waters, without stars or compass.
+
+Thus that summer ebbed slowly, and the time of my projected minor
+ordination approached. Messer Gambara's visits to Fifanti's grew more
+and more frequent, until they became a daily occurrence; and now my
+cousin Cosimo came oftener too. But it was their custom to come in the
+forenoon, when I was at work with Fifanti. And often I observed the
+doctor to be oddly preoccupied, and to spend much time in creeping to
+the window that was all wreathed in clematis, and in peeping through
+that purple-decked green curtain into the garden where his excellency
+and Cosimo walked with Monna Giuliana.
+
+When both visitors were there his anxiety seemed less. But if only
+one were present he would give himself no peace. And once when Messer
+Gambara and she went together within doors, he abruptly interrupted my
+studies, saying that it was enough for that day; and he went below to
+join them.
+
+Half a year earlier I should have had no solution for his strange
+behaviour. But I had learnt enough of the world by now to perceive what
+maggot was stirring in that egg-shaped head. Yet I blushed for him, and
+for his foul and unworthy suspicions. As soon would I have suspected the
+painted Madonna from the brush of Raffaele Santi that I had seen over
+the high altar of the Church of San Sisto, as suspect the beautiful
+and noble-souled Giuliana of giving that old pedant cause for his
+uneasiness. Still, I conceived that this was the penalty that such a
+withered growth of humanity must pay for having presumed to marry a
+young wife.
+
+We were much together in those days, Monna Giuliana and I. Our intimacy
+had grown over a little incident that it were well I should mention.
+
+A young painter, Gianantonio Regillo, better known to the world as Il
+Pordenone, had come to Piacenza that summer to decorate the Church
+of Santa Maria della Campagna. He came furnished with letters to the
+Governor, and Gambara had brought him to Fifanti's villa. From Monna
+Giuliana the young painter heard the curious story of my having been
+vowed prenatally to the cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine,
+and the hope that was entertained that I should walk in the ways of St.
+Augustine after whom I had been christened.
+
+It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a
+fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having
+seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion
+of using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and
+daily for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the
+time Monna Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.
+
+That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there--O
+bitter irony!--you may see me to this day, as the saint in whose ways it
+was desired that I should follow.
+
+Monna Giuliana and I would linger together in talk after the painter had
+gone; and this would be at about the time that I had my first lessons
+of Curial life from my Lord Gambara. You will remember that he mentioned
+Boccaccio to me, and I chanced to ask her was there in the library a
+copy of that author's tales.
+
+“Has that wicked priest bidden you to read them?” she inquired, 'twixt
+seriousness and mockery, her dark eyes upon me in one of those glances
+that never left me easy.
+
+I told her what had passed; and with a sigh and a comment that I would
+get an indigestion from so much mental nourishment as I was consuming,
+she led me to the little library to find the book.
+
+Messer Fifanti's was a very choice collection of works, and every one
+in manuscript; for the doctor was something of an idealist, and greatly
+averse to the printing-press and the wide dissemination of books to
+which it led. Out of his opposition to the machine grew a dislike to
+its productions, which he denounced as vulgar; and not even their
+comparative cheapness and the fact that, when all was said, he was a man
+of limited means, would induce him to harbour a single volume that was
+so produced.
+
+Along the shelves she sought, and finally drew down four heavy tomes.
+Turning the pages of the first, she found there, with a readiness that
+argued a good acquaintance with the work, the story of Abraam the Jew,
+which I desired to read as it had been set down. She bade me read it
+aloud, which I did, she seated in the window, listening to me.
+
+At first I read with some constraint and shyness, but presently warming
+to my task and growing interested, I became animated and vivacious in my
+manner, so that when I ceased I saw her sitting there, her hands clasped
+about one knee, her eyes upon my face, her lips parted a little, the
+very picture of interest.
+
+And with that it happened that we established a custom, and very often,
+almost daily, after dinner, we would repair together to the library, and
+I--who hitherto had no acquaintance with any save Latin works--began to
+make and soon to widen my knowledge of our Tuscan writers. We varied our
+reading. We dipped into our poets. Dante we read, and Petrarca, and both
+we loved, though better than the works of either--and this for the sake
+of the swift movement and action that is in his narrative, though his
+melodies, I realized, were not so pure--the Orlando of Ariosto.
+
+Sometimes we would be joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed
+very long. He had an old-fashioned contempt for writings in what he
+called the “dialettale,” and he loved the solemn injuvenations of
+the Latin tongue. Soon, as he listened, he would begin to yawn, and
+presently grunt and rise and depart, flinging a contemptuous word at
+the matter of my reading, and telling me at times that I might find more
+profitable amusement.
+
+But I persisted in it, guided ever by Fifanti's lady. And whatever
+we read by way of divergence, ever and anon we would come back to the
+stilted, lucid, vivid pages of Boccaccio.
+
+One day I chanced upon the tragical story of “Isabetta and the Pot of
+Basil,” and whilst I read I was conscious that she had moved from where
+she had been sitting and had come to stand behind my chair. And when I
+reached the point at which the heart-broken Isabetta takes the head of
+her murdered lover to her room, a tear fell suddenly upon my hand.
+
+I stopped, and looked up at Giuliana. She smiled at me through unshed
+tears that magnified her matchless eyes.
+
+“I will read no more,” I said. “It is too sad.”
+
+“Ah, no!” she begged. “Read on, Agostino! I love its sadness.”
+
+So I read on to the story's cruel end, and when it was done I sat quite
+still, myself a little moved by the tragedy of it, whilst Giuliana
+continued to lean against my chair. I was moved, too, in another way;
+curiously and unaccountably; and I could scarcely have defined what it
+was that moved me.
+
+I sought to break the spell of it, and turned the pages. “Let me read
+something else,” said I. “Something more gay, to dispel the sadness of
+this.”
+
+But her hand fell suddenly upon mine, enclasping and holding it. “Ah,
+no!” she begged me gently. “Give me the book. Let us read no more
+to-day.”
+
+I was trembling under her touch--trembling, my every nerve a-quiver and
+my breath shortened--and suddenly there flashed through my mind a line
+of Dante's in the story of Paolo and Francesca:
+
+     “Quel giorno piu non vi leggemo avanti.”
+
+Giuliana's words: “Let us read no more to-day”--had seemed an echo of
+that line, and the echo made me of a sudden conscious of an unsuspected
+parallel. All at once our position seemed to me strangely similar to
+that of the ill-starred lovers of Rimini.
+
+But the next moment I was sane again. She had withdrawn her hand, and
+had taken the volume to restore it to its shelf.
+
+Ah, no! At Rimini there had been two fools. Here there was but one. Let
+me make an end of him by persuading him of his folly.
+
+Yet Giuliana did nothing to assist me in that task. She returned from
+the book-shelf, and in passing lightly swept her fingers over my hair.
+
+“Come, Agostino; let us walk in the garden,” said she.
+
+We went, my mood now overpast. I was as sober and self-contained as
+was my habit. And soon thereafter came my Lord Gambara--a rare thing to
+happen in the afternoon.
+
+Awhile the three of us were together in the garden, talking of trivial
+matters. Then she fell to wrangling with him concerning something that
+Caro had written and of which she had the manuscript. In the end she
+begged me would I go seek the writing in her chamber. I went, and hunted
+where she had bidden me and elsewhere, and spent a good ten minutes
+vainly in the task. Chagrined that I could not discover the thing, I
+went into the library, thinking that it might be there.
+
+Doctor Fifanti was writing busily at the table when I intruded. He
+looked up, thrusting his horn-rimmed spectacles high upon his peaked
+forehead.
+
+“What the devil!” quoth he very testily. “I thought you were in the
+garden with Madonna Giuliana.”
+
+“My Lord Gambara is there,” said I.
+
+He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand. “Do I not know
+that?” he roared, though I could see no reason for all this heat. “And
+why are you not with them?”
+
+You are not to suppose that I was still the meek, sheepish lad who had
+come to Piacenza three months ago. I had not been learning my world and
+discovering Man to no purpose all this while.
+
+“It has yet to be explained to me,” said I, “under what obligation I
+am to be anywhere but where I please. That firstly. Secondly--but of
+infinitely lesser moment--Monna Giuliana has sent me for the manuscript
+of Messer Caro's Gigli d'Oro.”
+
+I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him. But
+quiet he became.
+
+“I... I was vexed by your interruption,” he said lamely, to explain his
+late choler. “Here is the thing. I found it here when I came. Messer
+Caro might discover better employment for his leisure. But there,
+there”--he seemed in sudden haste again. “Take it to her in God's name.
+She will be impatient.” I thought he sneered. “O, she will praise your
+diligence,” he added, and this time I was sure that he sneered.
+
+I took it, thanked him, and left the room intrigued. And when I rejoined
+them, and handed her the manuscript, the odd thing was that the subject
+of their discourse having meanwhile shifted, it no longer interested
+her, and she never once opened the pages she had been in such haste to
+have me procure.
+
+This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world
+
+But I was not done with riddles. For presently out came Fifanti himself,
+looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual. He
+was arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby
+slippers on his long, lean feet. He was ever a man of most indifferent
+personal habits.
+
+“Ah, Astorre,” his wife greeted him. “My Lord Cardinal brings you good
+tidings.”
+
+“Does he so?” quoth Fifanti, sourly as I thought; and he looked at
+the legate as though his excellency were the very reverse of a happy
+harbinger.
+
+“You will rejoice, I think, doctor,” said the smiling prelate, “to hear
+that I have letters from my Lord Pier Luigi appointing you one of the
+ducal secretaries. And this, I doubt not, will be followed, on his
+coming hither, by an appointment to his council. Meanwhile, the stipend
+is three hundred ducats, and the work is light.”
+
+There followed a long and baffling silence, during which the doctor grew
+first red, then pale, then red again, and Messer Gambara stood with his
+scarlet cloak sweeping about his shapely limbs, sniffing his pomander
+and smiling almost insolently into the other's face; and some of the
+insolence of his look, I thought, was reflected upon the pale, placid
+countenance of Giuliana.
+
+At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing.
+
+“It is too much for my poor deserts,” he said curtly.
+
+“You are too humble,” said the prelate. “Your loyalty to the House of
+Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received...”
+
+“Hospitality!” barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so
+oddly that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks. “You would pay
+for that?” he questioned, half mockingly. “Oh, but for that a stipend of
+three hundred ducats is too little.”
+
+And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as
+if she had been struck.
+
+But the Cardinal laughed outright. “Come now, you use me with an amiable
+frankness,” he said. “The stipend shall be doubled when you join the
+council.”
+
+“Doubled?” he said. “Six hundred...?” He checked. The sum was vast. I
+saw greed creep into his little eyes. What had troubled him hitherto,
+I could not fathom even yet. He washed his bony hands in the air, and
+looked at his wife again. “It... it is a fair price, no doubt, my lord,”
+ said he, his tone contemptuous.
+
+“The Duke shall be informed of the value of your learning,” lisped the
+Cardinal.
+
+Fifanti knit his brows. “The value of my learning?” he echoed, as if
+slowly puzzled. “My learning? Oh! Is that in question?”
+
+“Why else should we give you the appointment?” smiled the Cardinal, with
+a smile that was full of significance.
+
+“It is what the town will be asking, no doubt,” said Messer Fifanti. “I
+hope you will be able to satisfy its curiosity, my lord.”
+
+And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling,
+as I could perceive.
+
+My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of
+Monna Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be
+hateful to me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already
+profound mystification.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+
+In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than
+ever. Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not
+a day passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his
+guidance, I was wrestling.
+
+And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times
+he was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of
+the serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self. He watched
+her curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she
+presented a calm front and a patience almost saintly. He was as a man
+with some mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it
+or cast it off.
+
+Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a
+creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider
+what a power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to
+my erstwhile terror. She confided in me a little in those days, but ever
+with a most saintly resignation. She had been sold into wedlock, she
+admitted, with a man who might have been her father, and she confessed
+to finding her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who
+intends none the less to bear her cross with fortitude.
+
+And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing. We had been reading
+together, she and I, as was become our custom. She had fetched me a
+volume of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side
+on the marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder
+touching mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
+
+She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare
+justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was
+confined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my Lord
+Gambara. Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday
+between Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be
+the fruit of a base and unworthy mind.
+
+I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the lines
+or the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have told
+you.
+
+Presently she checked me. “Leave now Panormitano,” she said. “Here is
+something else upon which you shall give me your judgment.” And she set
+before me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand,
+which was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.
+
+I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a
+heart that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner
+seemed, the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admission
+of its moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done
+that day in the library when we had read of “Isabetta and the Pot of
+Basil.” Her hand was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.
+
+“Ah, thanks, Agostino,” she murmured. “Your praise is sweet to me. The
+verses are my own.”
+
+I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. The
+beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my
+first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I should
+have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an
+interruption.
+
+Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the
+voice of Messer Fifanti. “What do you read?”
+
+We started apart, and turned.
+
+Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we
+should not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our
+ears had been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidy
+gown of black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face.
+Slowly he put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony
+claw.
+
+He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his
+eyes up until they all but disappeared.
+
+Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and
+Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily
+in its russet sheath.
+
+He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.
+
+“Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?”
+ quoth he. “Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you
+must be wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor
+illiterate gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?” He
+took the book. “Panormitano!” he roared. “Now, there's a fitting author
+for a saint in embryo! There's a fine preparation for the cloister!”
+
+He turned to Giuliana. He put forward his hand and touched her bare
+shoulder with his hideous forefinger. She cringed under the touch as if
+it were barbed.
+
+“There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress,”
+ he said, with his deadly smile.
+
+“I do not,” she replied indignantly. “Agostino has a taste for letters,
+and...”
+
+“Tcha! Tcha!” he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply. “I had
+no thought for letters. There is my Lord Gambara, and there is Messer
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro. There is even Pordenone,
+the painter.” His lips writhed over their names. “You have friends
+enough, I think. Leave, then, Ser Agostino here. Do not dispute him with
+God to whom he has been vowed.”
+
+She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall,
+and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked then
+to me.
+
+“This is too much!” she cried.
+
+“It is, madam,” he snapped. “I agree with you.” She considered him with
+eyes that held a loathing and contempt unutterable. Then she looked
+at me, and shrugged her shoulders as who would say: “You see how I am
+used!” Lastly she turned, and took her way across the lawn towards the
+house.
+
+There was a little silence between us after she had gone. I was on fire
+with indignation, and yet I could think of no words in which I might
+express it, realizing how utterly I lacked the right to be angry with a
+husband for the manner in which he chose to treat his wife.
+
+At last, pondering me very gravely, he spoke.
+
+“It were best you read no more with Madonna Giuliana,” he said slowly.
+“Her tastes are not the tastes that become a man who is about to enter
+holy orders.” He closed the book, which hitherto he had held open;
+closed it with an angry snap, and held it out to me.
+
+“Restore it to its shelf,” he bade me.
+
+I took it, and quite submissively I went to do his bidding. But to gain
+the library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room. It stood open,
+and Giuliana herself in the doorway. We looked at each other, and seeing
+her so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forward
+to speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me.
+
+She stretched forth a hand to me. I took it and held it tight, looking
+up into her eyes.
+
+“Dear Agostino!” she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I,
+distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for
+the first time.
+
+“Giuliana!”
+
+Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss the
+hand which she had left in mine. And having kissed it I started upright
+and made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and
+waved me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and
+went to shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
+
+For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give,
+I avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were
+never once together.
+
+The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna
+sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,
+being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
+
+But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial
+as ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently
+entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
+Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and
+Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of
+that pedant.
+
+Explanation was about to be afforded me.
+
+On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was
+going afoot into the town, and solicited my escort. It was an honour
+that never before had been offered me. I reddened violently, but
+accepted it, and soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
+
+We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'
+Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing
+the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that
+garrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this new
+building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and
+so pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune,
+overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace. This
+was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very
+warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.
+
+Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring
+up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its
+summit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of
+rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching
+in that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of
+the sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies. The murmuring
+crowd looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
+
+He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he
+had been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the
+odious sin of sacrilege.
+
+“What!” I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna
+Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
+
+It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo
+and we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid me
+for the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable
+indiscretions but for her warning.
+
+“But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor
+wretch for sacrilege!” I cried. “It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is
+infamous!”
+
+“Not so loud,” she laughed. “You are being stared at.” And then she
+delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. “If a man being
+a sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in
+others, then is he twice a sinner.”
+
+“It was my Lord Gambara taught you that,” said I, and involuntarily I
+sneered.
+
+She considered me with a very searching look.
+
+“Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?”
+
+“Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks
+to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
+sequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious
+fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself.”
+
+“You do not love him?” said she.
+
+“O--as to that--as a man he is well enough. But as an ecclesiastic...O,
+but there!” I broke off shortly, and laughed. “The devil take Messer
+Gambara!”
+
+She smiled. “It is greatly to be feared that he will.”
+
+But my Lord Gambara was not so lightly to be dismissed that afternoon.
+As we were passing the Porta Fodesta, a little group of country-folk
+that had gathered there fell away before us, all eyes upon the dazzling
+beauty of Giuliana--as, indeed, had been the case ever since we had come
+into the town, so that I had been singularly and sweetly proud of being
+her escort. I had been conscious of the envious glances that many a
+tall fellow had sent after me, though, after all, theirs was but as the
+jealousy of Phoebus for Adonis.
+
+Wherever we had passed and eyes had followed us, men and women had
+fallen to whispering and pointing after us. And so did they now, here at
+the Fodesta Gate, but with this difference, that, at last, I overheard
+for once what was said, for there was one who did not whisper.
+
+“There goes the leman of my Lord Gambara,” quoth a gruff, sneering
+voice, “the light of love of the saintly legate who is starving Domenico
+to death in a cage for the sin of sacrilege.”
+
+Not a doubt but that he would have added more, but that at that moment
+a woman's shrill voice drowned his utterance. “Silence, Giuffre!” she
+admonished him fearfully. “Silence, on your life!”
+
+I had halted in my stride, suddenly cold from head to foot, as on that
+day when I had flung Rinolfo from top to bottom of the terrace steps
+at Mondolfo. It happened that I wore a sword for the first time in my
+life--a matter from which I gathered great satisfaction--having been
+adjudged worthy of the honour by virtue that I was to be Madonna's
+escort. To the hilt I now set hand impetuously, and would have turned to
+strike that foul slanderer dead, but that Giuliana restrained me, a wild
+alarm in her eyes.
+
+“Come!” she panted in a whisper. “Come away!”
+
+So imperious was the command that it conveyed to my mind some notion of
+the folly I should commit did I not obey it. I saw at once that did
+I make an ensample of this scurrilous scandalmonger I should thereby
+render her the talk of that vile town. So I went on, but very white and
+stiff, and breathing somewhat hard; for pent-up passion is an evil thing
+to house.
+
+Thus came we out of the town and to the shady banks of the gleaming
+Po. And then, at last, when we were quite alone, and within two hundred
+yards of Fifanti's house, I broke at last the silence.
+
+I had been thinking very busily, and the peasant's words had illumined
+for me a score of little obscure matters, had explained to me the queer
+behaviour and the odd speeches of Fifanti himself since that evening in
+the garden when the Cardinal-legate had announced to him his appointment
+as ducal secretary. I checked now in my stride, and turned to face her.
+
+“Was it true?” I asked, rendered brutally direct by a queer pain I felt
+as a result of my thinking.
+
+She looked up into my face so sadly and wistfully that my suspicions
+fell from me upon the instant, and I reddened from shame at having
+harboured them.
+
+“Agostino!” she cried, such a poor little cry of pain that I set my
+teeth hard and bowed my head in self-contempt.
+
+Then I looked at her again.
+
+“Yet the foul suspicion of that lout is shared by your husband himself,”
+ said I.
+
+“The foul suspicion--yes,” she answered, her eyes downcast, her cheeks
+faintly tinted. And then, quite suddenly, she moved forward. “Come,” she
+bade me. “You are being foolish.”
+
+“I shall be mad,” said I, “ere I have done with this.” And I fell into
+step again beside her. “If I could not avenge you there, I can avenge
+you here.” And I pointed to the house. “I can smite this rumour at its
+foulest point.”
+
+Her hand fell on my arm. “What would you do?” she cried.
+
+“Bid your husband retract and sue to you for pardon, or else tear out
+his lying throat,” I answered, for I was in a great rage by now.
+
+She stiffened suddenly. “You go too fast, Messer Agostino,” said she.
+“And you are over-eager to enter into that which does not concern you.
+I do not know that I have given you the right to demand of my husband
+reason of the manner in which he deals with me. It is a thing that
+touches only my husband and myself.”
+
+I was abashed; I was humiliated; I was nigh to tears. I choked it all
+down, and I strode on beside her, my rage smouldering within me. But it
+was flaring up again by the time we reached the house with no more words
+spoken between us. She went to her room without another glance at me,
+and I repaired straight in quest of Fifanti.
+
+I found him in the library. He had locked himself in, as was his
+frequent habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock. I stalked
+in, unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner. Then I turned to him.
+
+“You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor,” said I, with all
+the directness of youth and indiscretion.
+
+He stared at me as if I had struck him--as he might have stared, rather,
+at a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back for the
+child's good, or to be amused and smile.
+
+“Ah!” he said at last. “She has been talking to you?” And he clasped his
+hands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legs
+wide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
+
+“No,” said I. “I have been thinking.”
+
+“In that case nothing will surprise me,” he said in his sour,
+contemptuous manner. “And so you have concluded...?”
+
+“That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion.”
+
+“Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfort
+me,” he sneered. “And what, pray, is this suspicion?
+
+“You suspect that... that--O God! I can't utter the thing.”
+
+“Take courage,” he mocked me. And he thrust his head farther forward. He
+looked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
+
+“You suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara and Madonna...
+that...” I clenched my hands together, and looked into his leering face.
+“You understand me well enough,” I cried, almost angrily.
+
+He looked at me seriously now, a cold glitter in his small eyes.
+
+“I wonder do you understand yourself?” he asked. “I think not. I think
+not. Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you a
+priest, and thus complete God's work.”
+
+“You cannot move me by your taunts,” I said. “You have a foul mind,
+Messer Fifanti.”
+
+He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on the
+wooden floor.
+
+“Because,” said he, “I suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara
+and Madonna... that... You understand me,” he mocked me, with a mimicry of
+my own confusion. “And what affair may it be of yours whom I suspect or
+of what I suspect them where my own are concerned?”
+
+“It is my affair, as it is the affair of every man who would be
+accounted gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady from
+the foul aspersions of slander.”
+
+“Knight-errantry, by the Host!” quoth he, and his brows shot up on
+his steep brow. Then they came down again to scowl. “No doubt, my
+preux-chevalier, you will have definite knowledge of the groundlessness
+of these same slanders,” he said, moving backwards, away from me,
+towards the door; and as he moved now his feet made no sound, though I
+did not yet notice this nor, indeed, his movement at all.
+
+“Knowledge?” I roared at him. “What knowledge can you need beyond what
+is afforded by her face? Look in it, Messer Fifanti, if you would see
+innocence and purity and chastity! Look in it!”
+
+“Very well,” said he. “Let us look in it.”
+
+And quite suddenly he pulled the door open to disclose Giuliana standing
+there, erect but in a listening attitude.
+
+“Look in it!” he mocked me, and waved one of his bony hands towards that
+perfect countenance.
+
+There was shame and confusion in her face, and some anger. But she
+turned without a word, and went quickly down the passage, followed by
+his evil, cackling laugh.
+
+Then he looked at me quite solemnly. “I think,” said he, “you had best
+get to your studies. You will find more than enough to engage you there.
+Leave my affairs to me, boy.”
+
+There was almost a menace in his voice, and after what had happened it
+was impossible to pursue the matter.
+
+Sheepishly, overwhelmed with confusion, I went out--a knight-errant with
+a shorn crest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+
+I had angered her! Worse; I had exposed her to humiliation at the hands
+of that unworthy animal who soiled her in thought with the slime of
+his suspicions. Through me she had been put to the shameful need of
+listening at a door, and had been subjected to the ignominy of being so
+discovered. Through me she had been mocked and derided!
+
+It was all anguish to me. For her there was no shame, no humiliation, no
+pain I would not suffer, and take joy in the suffering so that it be for
+her. But to have submitted that sweet, angelic woman to suffering--to
+have incurred her just anger! Woe me!
+
+I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy,
+feeling it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it
+her regard or her neglect. To my relief she sent word that she was not
+well and would keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked
+his blue chin and gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when
+the meal was done, I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and
+went to shut myself up again in my room.
+
+I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir. I went
+down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the
+wet grass that was all scintillant with dew. On the marble bench by the
+pond, where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and
+there was I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself.
+
+She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I
+had no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled
+me out of my musings.
+
+“Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?” quoth she.
+
+I turned to meet her laughing eyes. “You... you can forgive me?” I
+faltered foolishly.
+
+She pouted tenderly. “Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly
+out of love for me?”
+
+“It was, it was...” I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling
+myself growing red under her lazy glance.
+
+“I know it was,” she answered. She set her elbows on the seat's tall
+back until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow. “And should I
+bear you a resentment, then? My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel?
+Am I but a cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband?
+O God! To have been mated to that withered pedant! To have been
+sacrificed, to have been sold into such bondage! Me miserable!”
+
+“Giuliana!” I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself.
+
+“Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?”
+
+“Hush!” I implored her. “What are you saying?”
+
+But though I begged her to be silent, my soul was avid for more such
+words from her--from her, the most perfect and beautiful of women.
+
+“Why should I not?” said she. “Is truth ever to be stifled? Ever?”
+
+I was mad, I know--quite mad. Her words had made me so. And when, to ask
+me that insistent question, she brought her face still nearer, I flung
+down the reins of my unreason and let it ride amain upon its desperate,
+reckless course. In short, I too leaned forward, I leaned forward, and I
+kissed her full upon those scarlet, parted lips.
+
+I kissed her, and fell back with a cry that was of anguish almost--so
+poignantly had the sweet, fierce pain of that kiss run through my every
+fibre. And as I cried out, so too did she, stepping back, her hands
+suddenly to her face. But the next moment she was peering up at the
+windows of the house--those inscrutable eyes that looked upon our deed;
+that looked and of which it was impossible to discern how much they
+might have seen.
+
+“If he should have seen us!” was her cry; and it moved me unpleasantly
+that such should have been the first thought my kiss inspired in her.
+“If he should have seen us! Gesu! I have enough to bear already!”
+
+“I care not,” said I. “Let him see. I am not Messer Gambara. No man
+shall put an insult upon you on my account, and live.”
+
+I was become the very ranting, roaring, fire-breathing type of lover who
+will slaughter a whole world to do pleasure to his mistress or to spare
+her pain--I--I--I, Agostino d'Anguissola--who was to be ordained next
+month and walk in the ways of St. Augustine!
+
+Laugh as you read--for very pity, laugh!
+
+“Nay, nay,” she reassured herself. “He will be still abed. He was
+snoring when I left.” And she dismissed her fears, and looked at me
+again, and returned to the matter of that kiss.
+
+“What have you done to me, Agostino?”
+
+I dropped my glance before her languid eyes. “What I have done to
+no other woman yet,” I answered, a certain gloom creeping over the
+exultation that still thrilled me. “O Giuliana, what have you done to
+me? You have bewitched me; You have made me mad!” And I set my elbows on
+my knees and took my head in my hands, and sat there, overwhelmed now by
+the full consciousness of the irrevocable thing that I had done, a thing
+that must brand my soul for ever, so it seemed.
+
+To have kissed a maid would have been ill enough for one whose aims were
+mine. But to kiss a wife, to become a cicisbeo! The thing assumed in my
+mind proportions foolishly, extravagantly beyond its evil reality.
+
+“You are cruel, Agostino,” she whispered behind me. She had come to lean
+again upon the back of the bench. “Am I alone to blame? Can the iron
+withstand the lodestone? Can the rain help falling upon the earth? Can
+the stream flow other than downhill?” She sighed. “Woe me! It is I who
+should be angered that you have made free of my lips. And yet I am here,
+wooing you to forgive me for the sin that is your own.”
+
+I cried out at that and turned to her again, and I was very white, I
+know.
+
+“You tempted me!” was my coward's cry.
+
+“So said Adam once. Yet God thought otherwise, for Adam was as fully
+punished as was Eve.” She smiled wistfully into my eyes, and my senses
+reeled again. And then old Busio, the servant, came suddenly forth
+from the house upon some domestic errand to Giuliana, and thus was that
+situation mercifully brought to an end.
+
+For the rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning,
+reciting to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in
+memory the vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was
+visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew
+more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head,
+and commended the wisdom of those who had determined upon a claustral
+life for me, admitting that I knew enough Latin to enable me to
+celebrate as well as another without too clear a knowledge of the
+meaning of what I pattered. All of which was grossly untrue, for, as
+none knew better than himself, the fluency of my Latin was above the
+common wont of students. When I told him so, he delivered himself of his
+opinion upon the common wont of students with all the sourness of his
+crabbed nature.
+
+“I'll write an ode for you upon any subject that you may set me,” I
+challenged him.
+
+“Then write one upon impudence,” said he. “It is a subject you should
+understand.” And upon that he got up and flung out of the room in a pet
+before I could think of an answer.
+
+Left alone, I began an ode which should prove to him his lack of
+justice. But I got no further than two lines of it. Then for a spell I
+sat biting my quill, my mind and the eyes of my soul full of Giuliana.
+
+Presently I began to write again. It was not an ode, but a prayer,
+oddly profane--and it was in Italian, in the “dialettale” that provoked
+Fifanti's sneers. How it ran I have forgotten these many years. But I
+recall that in it I likened myself to a sailor navigating shoals and
+besought the pharos of Giuliana's eyes to bring me safely through,
+besought her to anoint me with her glance and so hearten me to brave the
+dangers of that procellous sea.
+
+I read it first with satisfaction, then with dismay as I realized to the
+full its amorous meaning. Lastly I tore it up and went below to dine.
+
+We were still at table when my Lord Gambara arrived. He came on
+horseback attended by two grooms whom he left to await him. He was all
+in black velvet, I remember, even to his thigh-boots which were laced
+up the sides with gold, and on his breast gleamed a fine medallion of
+diamonds. Of the prelate there was about him, as usual, nothing but the
+scarlet cloak and the sapphire ring.
+
+Fifanti rose and set a chair for him, smiling a crooked smile that
+held more hostility than welcome. None the less did his excellency pay
+Madonna Giuliana a thousand compliments as he took his seat, supremely
+calm and easy in his manner. I watched him closely, and I watched
+Giuliana, a queer fresh uneasiness pervading me.
+
+The talk was trivial and chiefly concerned with the progress of the
+barracks the legate was building and the fine new road from the middle
+of the city to the Church of Santa Chiara, which he intended should
+be called the Via Gambara, but which, despite his intentions, is known
+to-day as the Stradone Farnese.
+
+Presently my cousin arrived, full-armed and very martial by contrast
+with the velvety Cardinal. He frowned to see Messer Gambara, then
+effaced the frown and smiled as, one by one, he greeted us. Last of all
+he turned to me.
+
+“And how fares his saintliness?” quoth he.
+
+“Indeed, none too saintly,” said I, speaking my thoughts aloud.
+
+He laughed. “Why, then, the sooner we are in orders, the sooner shall we
+be on the road to mending that. Is it not so, Messer Fifanti?
+
+“His ordination will profit you, I nothing doubt,” said Fifanti, with
+his habitual discourtesy and acidity. “So you do well to urge it.”
+
+The answer put my cousin entirely out of countenance a moment. It was
+a blunt way of reminding me that in this Cosimo I saw one who followed
+after me in the heirship to Mondolfo, and in whose interests it was that
+I should don the conventual scapulary.
+
+I looked at Cosimo's haughty face and cruel mouth, and conjectured in
+that hour whether I should have found him so very civil and pleasant a
+cousin had things been other than they were.
+
+O, a very serpent was Messer Fifanti; and I have since wondered whether
+of intent he sought to sow in my heart hatred of my guelphic cousin,
+that he might make of me a tool for his own service--as you shall come
+to understand.
+
+Meanwhile, Cosimo, having recovered, waved aside the imputation, and
+smiled easily.
+
+“Nay, there you wrong me. The Anguissola lose more than I shall gain by
+Agostino's renunciation of the world. And I am sorry for it. You believe
+me, cousin?”
+
+I answered his courteous speech as it deserved, in very courteous terms.
+This set a pleasanter humour upon all. Yet some restraint abode. Each
+sat, it seemed, as a man upon his guard. My cousin watched Gambara's
+every look whenever the latter turned to speak to Giuliana; the
+Cardinal-legate did the like by him; and Messer Fifanti watched them
+both.
+
+And, meantime, Giuliana sat there, listening now to one, now to the
+other, her lazy smile parting those scarlet lips--those lips that I had
+kissed that morning--I, whom no one thought of watching!
+
+And soon came Messer Annibale Caro, with lines from the last pages of
+his translation oozing from him. And when presently Giuliana smote her
+hands together in ecstatic pleasure at one of those same lines and
+bade him repeat it to her, he swore roundly by all the gods that are
+mentioned in Virgil that he would dedicate the work to her upon its
+completion.
+
+At this the surliness became general once more and my Lord Gambara
+ventured the opinion--and there was a note of promise, almost of threat,
+in his sleek tones--that the Duke would shortly be needing Messer Caro's
+presence in Parma; whereupon Messer Caro cursed the Duke roundly and
+with all a poet's volubility of invective.
+
+They stayed late, each intent, no doubt, upon outstaying the others.
+But since none would give way they were forced in the end to depart
+together.
+
+And whilst Messer Fifanti, as became a host, was seeing them to their
+horses, I was left alone with Giuliana.
+
+“Why do you suffer those men?” I asked her bluntly. Her delicate
+brows were raised in surprise. “Why, what now? They are very pleasant
+gentlemen, Agostino.”
+
+“Too pleasant,” said I, and rising I crossed to the window whence I
+could watch them getting to horse, all save Caro, who had come afoot.
+“Too pleasant by much. That prelate out of Hell, now...”
+
+“Sh!” she hissed at me, smiling, her hand raised. “Should he hear you,
+he might send you to the cage for sacrilege. O Agostino!” she cried,
+and the smiles all vanished from her face. “Will you grow cruel and
+suspicious, too?”
+
+I was disarmed. I realized my meanness and unworthiness.
+
+“Have patience with me,” I implored her. “I... I am not myself to-day.”
+ I sighed ponderously, and fell silent as I watched them ride away. Yet
+I hated them all; and most of all I hated the dainty, perfumed,
+golden-headed Cardinal-legate.
+
+He came again upon the morrow, and we learnt from the news of which
+he was the bearer that he had carried out his threat concerning Messer
+Caro. The poet was on his way to Parma, to Duke Pier Luigi, dispatched
+thither on a mission of importance by the Cardinal. He spoke, too, of
+sending my cousin to Perugia, where a strong hand was needed, as the
+town showed signs of mutiny against the authority of the Holy See.
+
+When he had departed, Messer Fifanti permitted himself one of his bitter
+insinuations.
+
+“He desires a clear field,” he said, smiling his cold smile upon
+Giuliana. “It but remains for him to discover that his Duke has need of
+me as well.”
+
+He spoke of it as a possible contingency, but sarcastically, as men
+speak of things too remote to be seriously considered. He was to
+remember his words two days later when the very thing came to pass.
+
+We were at breakfast when the blow fell.
+
+There came a clatter of hooves under our windows, which stood open to
+the tepid September morning, and soon there was old Busio ushering in
+an officer of the Pontificals with a parchment tied in scarlet silk and
+sealed with the arms of Piacenza.
+
+Messer Fifanti took the package and weighed it in his hand, frowning.
+Perhaps already some foreboding of the nature of its contents was in his
+mind. Meanwhile, Giuliana poured wine for the officer, and Busio bore
+him the cup upon a salver.
+
+Fifanti ripped away silk and seals, and set himself to read. I can see
+him now, standing near the window to which he had moved to gain a better
+light, the parchment under his very nose, his short-sighted eyes screwed
+up as he acquainted himself with the letter's contents. Then I saw him
+turn a sickly leaden hue. He stared at the officer a moment and then at
+Giuliana. But I do not think that he saw either of them. His look was
+the blank look of one whose thoughts are very distant.
+
+He thrust his hands behind him, and with head forward, in that curious
+attitude so reminiscent of a bird of prey, he stepped slowly back to his
+place at the table-head. Slowly his cheeks resumed their normal tint.
+
+“Very well, sir,” he said, addressing the officer. “Inform his
+excellency that I shall obey the summons of the Duke's magnificence
+without delay.”
+
+The officer bowed to Giuliana, took his leave, and went, old Busio
+escorting him.
+
+“A summons from the Duke?” cried Giuliana, and then the storm broke
+
+“Ay,” he answered, grimly quiet, “a summons from the Duke.” And he
+tossed it across the table to her.
+
+I saw that fateful document float an instant in the air, and then,
+thrown out of poise by the blob of wax, swoop slanting to her lap.
+
+“It will come no doubt as a surprise to you,” he growled; and upon that
+his hard-held passion burst all bonds that he could impose upon it.
+His great bony fist crashed down upon the board and swept a precious
+Venetian beaker to the ground, where it burst into a thousand atoms,
+spreading red wine like a bloodstain upon the floor.
+
+“Said I not that this rascal Cardinal would make a clear field for
+himself? Said I not so?” He laughed shrill and fiercely. “He would send
+your husband packing as he has sent his other rivals. O, there is a
+stipend waiting--a stipend of three hundred ducats yearly that shall be
+made into six hundred presently, and all for my complaisance, all that I
+may be a joyous and content cornuto!”
+
+He strode to the window cursing horribly, whilst Giuliana sat white of
+face with lips compressed and heaving bosom, her eyes upon her plate.
+
+“My Lord Cardinal and his Duke may take themselves together to Hell ere
+I obey the summons that the one has sent me at the desire of the other.
+Here I stay to guard what is my own.”
+
+“You are a fool,” said Giuliana at length, “and a knave, too, for you
+insult me without cause.”
+
+“Without cause? O, without cause, eh? By the Host! Yet you would not
+have me stay?”
+
+“I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey
+the Duke's magnificence,” said she.
+
+“Gaoled?” quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of
+his passion. “Caged, perhaps--to die of hunger and thirst and exposure,
+like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last, because
+he dared to speak the truth. Gesu!” he groaned. “O, miserable me!” And
+he sank into a chair.
+
+But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving
+fiercely. “By the Eyes of God! They shall have cause to cage me. If I
+am to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns. I'll gore their
+vitals. O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you
+should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti.”
+
+It was too much. I leapt to my feet.
+
+“Messer Fifanti,” I blazed at him. “I'll not remain to hear such words
+addressed to this sweet lady.”
+
+“Ah, yes,” he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike
+me. “I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in
+embryo! You will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?” And he strode,
+mouthing, to the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the
+wall. “This is your remedy. Get you hence! Go! What passes here concerns
+you not. Go!” he roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific.
+
+I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly
+invited her to tell me how she would have me act.
+
+“Indeed, you had best go, Agostino,” she answered sadly. “I shall bear
+his insults easier if there be no witness. Yes, go.”
+
+“Since it is your wish, Madonna,” I bowed to her, and very erect, very
+defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out. I
+heard the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon
+Busio, who was wringing his hand and looking very white. He ran to me.
+
+“He will murder her, Messer Agostino,” moaned the old man. “He can be a
+devil in his anger.”
+
+“He is a devil always, in anger and out of it,” said I. “He needs an
+exorcist. It is a task that I should relish. I'd beat the devils out of
+him, Busio, and she would let me. Meanwhile, stay we here, and if she
+needs our help, it shall be hers.”
+
+I dropped on to the carved settle that stood there, old Busio standing
+at my elbow, more tranquil now that there was help at hand for Madonna
+in case of need. And through the door came the sound of his storming,
+and presently the crash of more broken glassware, as once more he
+thumped the table. For well-high half an hour his fury lasted, and it
+was seldom that her voice was interposed. Once we heard her laugh, cold
+and cutting as a sword's edge, and I shivered at the sound, for it was
+not good to hear.
+
+At last the door was opened and he came forth. His face was inflamed,
+his eyes wild and blood-injected. He paused for a moment on the
+threshold, but I do not think that he noticed us at first. He looked
+back at her over his shoulder, still sitting at table, the outline of
+her white-gowned body sharply defined against the deep blue tapestry of
+the wall behind her.
+
+“You are warned,” said he. “Do you heed the warning!” And he came
+forward.
+
+Perceiving me at last where I sat, he bared his broken teeth in a
+snarling smile. But it was to Busio that he spoke. “Have my mule saddled
+for me in an hour,” he said, and passed on and up the stairs to make
+his preparations. It seemed, therefore, that she had conquered his
+suspicions.
+
+I went in to offer her comfort, for she was weeping and all shaken by
+that cruel encounter. But she waved me away.
+
+“Not now, Agostino. Not now,” she implored me. “Leave me to myself, my
+friend.”
+
+I had not been her friend had I not obeyed her without question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+
+It was late that afternoon when Astorre Fifanti set out. He addressed
+a few brief words to me, informing me that he should return within four
+days, betide what might, setting me tasks upon which I was meanwhile
+to work, and bidding me keep the house and be circumspect during his
+absence.
+
+From the window of my room I saw the doctor get astride his mule. He
+was girt with a big sword, but he still wore his long, absurd and shabby
+gown and his loose, ill-fitting shoes, so that it was very likely that
+the stirrup-leathers would engage his thoughts ere he had ridden far.
+
+I saw him dig his heels into the beast's sides and go ambling down the
+little avenue and out at the gate. In the road he drew rein, and stood
+in talk some moments with a lad who idled there, a lad whom he was wont
+to employ upon odd tasks about the garden and elsewhere.
+
+This, Madonna also saw, for she was watching his departure from the
+window of a room below. That she attached more importance to that little
+circumstance than did I, I was to learn much later.
+
+At last he pushed on, and I watched him as he dwindled down the long
+grey road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost
+to view--for all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle
+hope been realized.
+
+I supped alone that night with no other company than Busio's, who
+ministered to my needs.
+
+Madonna sent word that she would keep her chamber. When I had supped
+and after night had fallen I went upstairs to the library, and, shutting
+myself in, I attempted to read, lighted by the three beaks of the tall
+brass lamp that stood upon the table. Being plagued by moths, I drew the
+curtains close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with
+the opening lines of the [Title in Greek] of Aeschylus.
+
+But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at
+last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought,
+in doubt, and in conjecture. I became seriously introspective. I made an
+examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found
+that I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for
+me. Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.
+
+Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last
+talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me.
+That memory inspired me rightly. To-morrow--despite Messer Fifanti's
+orders--I would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess
+myself to Fra Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel. My mother's vows
+concerning me I saw in their true light. They were not binding upon me;
+indeed, I should be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against
+my inclinations. I must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had
+vowed or ever I was born, however much she might account that it would
+be no more than filial piety so to do.
+
+I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that
+mind of mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of
+Giuliana--Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still
+sought to conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering. Better
+a thousand times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it
+boldly. Thus should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning
+clear of all the horror that lay before me.
+
+That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed
+strength, I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of
+all--was the fault of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo
+they had so nurtured me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of
+the world that I was grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the
+Devil's mouth. The things to whose temptation usage would have rendered
+me in some degree immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored
+as had I.
+
+Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
+riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in
+which the Devil has the cunning to array it.
+
+And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of where I stood and in
+what perils were to play the hypocrite. Largely I knew; just as I knew
+that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight. And
+to-morrow I would go. That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile,
+turned down. And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of
+this hunger that was upon me.
+
+And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the
+door was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me.
+She detached from the black background of the passage, and the light of
+my three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there
+was a luminous nimbus all about her head. For a moment this gave colour
+to my fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness
+of my thoughts. The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was
+almost diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful.
+Only in the vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.
+
+I stared at her. “Giuliana!” I murmured.
+
+“Why do you sit so late?” she asked me, and closed the door as she
+spoke.
+
+“I have been thinking, Giuliana,” I answered wearily, and I passed a
+hand over my brow to find it moist and clammy. “To-morrow I go hence.”
+
+She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her
+breast. “You go hence?” she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.
+“Hence? Whither?”
+
+“Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end.”
+
+She came slowly towards me. “And... and then?” she asked.
+
+“And then? I do not know. What God wills. But the scapulary is not for
+me. I am unworthy. I have no call. This I now know. And sooner than
+be such a priest as Messer Gambara--of whom there are too many in the
+Church to-day--I will find some other way of serving God.”
+
+“Since... since when have you thought thus?”
+
+“Since this morning, when I kissed you,” I answered fiercely.
+
+She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to
+me, inviting the clasp of mine. “But if this is so, why leave us?”
+
+“Because I am afraid,” I answered. “Because... O God! Giuliana, do you
+not see?” And I sank my head into my hands.
+
+Steps shuffled along the corridor. I looked up sharply. She set a finger
+to her lips. There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us.
+
+“Madonna,” he announced, “my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks
+for you.”
+
+I started up as if I had been stung. So! At this hour! Then Messer
+Fifanti's suspicions did not entirely lack for grounds.
+
+Giuliana flashed me a glance ere she made answer.
+
+“You will tell my Lord Gambara that I have retired for the night and
+that... But stay!” She caught up a quill and dipped it in the ink-horn,
+drew paper to herself, and swiftly wrote three lines; then dusted it
+with sand, and proffered that brief epistle to the servant.
+
+“Give this to my lord.”
+
+Busio took the note, bowed, and departed.
+
+After the door had closed a silence followed, in which I paced the room
+in long strides, aflame now with the all-consuming fire of jealousy.
+I do believe that Satan had set all the legions of hell to achieve my
+overthrow that night. Naught more had been needed to undo me than this
+spur of jealousy. It brought me now to her side. I stood over her,
+looking down at her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my
+glance with such a look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims.
+
+“Why dared he come?” I asked.
+
+“Perhaps... perhaps some affair connected with Astorre...” she faltered.
+
+I sneered. “That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to
+Parma.”
+
+“If there was aught else, I am no party to it,” she assured me.
+
+How could I do other than believe her? How could I gauge the turpitude
+of that beauty's mind--I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches
+women? How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that
+lad at the gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon
+the house, and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone? I
+knew it later. But not then.
+
+“Will you swear that it is as you say?” I asked her, white with passion.
+
+As I have said, I was standing over her and very close. Her answer now
+was suddenly to rise. Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms
+until she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly
+veiled, her lips a-pout.
+
+“Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I
+love you?” she asked me.
+
+For an instant we swayed together in that sweetly hideous embrace. I was
+as a man sapped of all strength by some portentous struggle. I trembled
+from head to foot. I cried out once--a despairing prayer for help,
+I think it was--and then I seemed to plunge headlong down through an
+immensity of space until my lips found hers. The ecstasy, the living
+fire, the anguish, and the torture of it have left their indelible scars
+upon my memory. Even as I write the cruelly sweet poignancy of that
+moment is with me again--though very hateful now.
+
+Thus I, blindly and recklessly, under the sway and thrall of that
+terrific and overpowering temptation. And then there leapt in my mind a
+glimmer of returning consciousness: a glimmer that grew rapidly to be
+a blazing light in which I saw revealed the hideousness of the thing I
+did. I tore myself away from her in that second of revulsion and hurled
+her from me, fiercely and violently, so that, staggering to the seat
+from which she had risen, she fell into it rather than sat down.
+
+And whilst, breathless with parted lips and galloping bosom, she
+observed me, something near akin to terror in her eyes, I stamped about
+that room and raved and heaped abuse and recriminations upon myself,
+ending by going down upon my knees to her, imploring her forgiveness for
+the thing I had done--believing like a fatuous fool that it was all my
+doing--and imploring her still more passionately to leave me and to go.
+
+She set a trembling hand upon my head; she took my chin in the other,
+and raised my face until she could look into it.
+
+“If it be your will--if it will bring you peace and happiness, I will
+leave you now and never see you more. But are you not deluded, my
+Agostino?”
+
+And then, as if her self-control gave way, she fell to weeping.
+
+“And what of me if you go? What of me wedded to that monster, to that
+cruel and inhuman pedant who tortures and insults me as you have seen?”
+
+“Beloved, will another wrong cure the wrong of that?” I pleaded. “O, if
+you love me, go--go, leave me. It is too late--too late!”
+
+I drew away from her touch, and crossed the room to fling myself upon
+the window-seat. For a space we sat apart thus, panting like wrestlers
+who have flung away from each other. At length--“Listen, Giuliana,” I
+said more calmly. “Were I to heed you, were I to obey my own desires, I
+should bid you come away with me from this to-morrow.”
+
+“If you but would!” she sighed. “You would be taking me out of hell.”
+
+“Into another worse,” I countered swiftly. “I should do you such a wrong
+as naught could ever right again.”
+
+She looked at me for a spell in silence. Her back was to the light and
+her face in shadow, so that I could not read what passed there. Then,
+very slowly, like one utterly weary, she got to her feet.
+
+“I will do your will, beloved; but I do it not for the wrong that I
+should suffer--for that I should count no wrong--but for the wrong that
+I should be doing you.”
+
+She paused as if for an answer. I had none for her. I raised my arms,
+then let them fall again, and bowed my head. I heard the gentle rustle
+of her robe, and I looked up to see her staggering towards the door, her
+arms in front of her like one who is blind. She reached it, pulled it
+open, and from the threshold gave me one last ineffable look of her
+great eyes, heavy now with tears. Then the door closed again, and I was
+alone.
+
+From my heart there rose a great surge of thankfulness. I fell upon my
+knees and prayed. For an hour at least I must have knelt there, seeking
+grace and strength; and comforted at last, my calm restored, I rose, and
+went to the window. I drew back the curtains, and leaned out to breathe
+the physical calm of that tepid September night.
+
+And presently out of the gloom a great grey shape came winging towards
+the window, the heavy pinions moving ponderously with their uncanny
+sough. It was an owl attracted by the light. Before that bird of evil
+omen, that harbinger of death, I drew back and crossed myself. I had a
+sight of its sphinx-like face and round, impassive eyes ere it circled
+to melt again into the darkness, startled by any sudden movement. I
+closed the window and left the room.
+
+Very softly I crept down the passage towards my chamber, leaving the
+light burning in the library, for it was not my habit to extinguish it,
+and I gave no thought to the lateness of the hour.
+
+Midway down the passage I halted. I was level with Giuliana's door, and
+from under it there came a slender blade of light. But it was not this
+that checked me. She was singing, Such a pitiful little heartbroken song
+it was:
+
+     “Amor mi muojo; mi muojo amore mio!”
+
+ran its last line.
+
+I leaned against the wall, and a sob broke from me. Then, in an instant,
+the passage was flooded with light, and in the open doorway Giuliana
+stood all white before me, her arms held out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+From the distance, drawing rapidly nearer and ringing sharply in the
+stillness of the night, came the clatter of a mule's hooves.
+
+But, though heard, it was scarcely heard consciously, and it certainly
+went unheeded until it was beneath the window and ceasing at the door.
+
+Giuliana's fingers locked themselves upon my arm in a grip of fear.
+
+“Who comes?” she asked, below her breath, fearfully. I sprang from the
+bed and crouched, listening, by the window, and so lost precious time.
+
+Out of the darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now and
+trembling.
+
+“It will be Astorre,” she said, with conviction. “At this hour it can
+be none else. I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gate
+this afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him wherever
+he was lurking, did the need arise.”
+
+“But how should the boy know...?” I began, when she interrupted me
+almost impatiently.
+
+“The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up. He waited for no more, but went at
+once to warn Astorre. He has been long in coming,” she added in the tone
+of one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thing
+that is happening. And then, suddenly and very urgently, “Go, go--go
+quickly!” she bade me.
+
+As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:
+
+“Why does he not knock? For what does he wait?” Immediately, from
+the stairs, came a terrific answer to her question--the unmistakable,
+slip-slopping footstep of the doctor.
+
+I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered
+I could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful
+fact that he was in.
+
+I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and groping
+forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the
+very steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
+
+At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close it
+after me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of
+the light Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which way
+to turn. My first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt it
+were assuredly to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftly
+and stealthily as possible towards the library.
+
+I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
+sight of me before I had closed the door.
+
+I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting,
+and trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a
+glimpse of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
+
+I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
+haste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other.
+His face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone
+yellow. The fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound between
+a roar and a snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping down
+the passage.
+
+I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to seat myself at the table, a
+book before me, and feigning slumber, present the appearance of one who
+had been overcome by weariness at his labours. But now all thought
+of that was at an end. I had been seen, and that I fled was all too
+apparent. So that in every way I was betrayed.
+
+The thing I did, I did upon instinct rather than reason; and this again
+was not well done. I slammed the door, and turned the key, placing
+at least that poor barrier between myself and the man I had so deeply
+wronged, the man whom I had given the right to slay me. A second later
+the door shook as if a hurricane had smitten it. He had seized the
+handle, and he was pulling at it frenziedly with a maniacal strength.
+
+“Open!” he thundered, and fell to snarling and whimpering horribly.
+“Open!”
+
+Then, quite abruptly he became oddly calm. It was as if his rage grew
+coldly purposeful; and the next words he uttered acted upon me as a
+dagger-prod, and reawakened my mind from its momentary stupefaction.
+
+“Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my Lord
+Gambara?” quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
+
+My Lord Gambara! He mistook me for the Legate! In an instant I saw the
+reason of this. It was as Giuliana had conceived. The boy had run to
+warn him wherever he was--at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon the
+road to Parma. And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had
+gone to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate come
+forth again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was
+Gambara whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had the
+right to do.
+
+When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lain
+between us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom he
+expected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled before
+him.
+
+There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed.
+For no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme how
+I might profit by it. Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place if
+the thing could be contrived. If not in fact, at least in intent, the
+Cardinal-legate had certainly sinned. If he was not in my place now,
+it was through the too great good fortune that attended him. Besides,
+Gambara would be in better case to protect himself from the consequences
+and from Fifanti's anger.
+
+Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window. If
+I could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my own
+chamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at that
+door. Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, as
+he mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
+
+“You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough. You
+would plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you are
+gored by them.”
+
+Then he laughed hideously. “This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a
+fool. He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit
+my Lord Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you that
+suspicious husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they
+remain.”
+
+Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door was
+shaken.
+
+“Will you open, then, or must I break down the door! There is no barrier
+in the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you. I
+have the right to kill you by every law of God and man. Shall I forgo
+that right?” He laughed snarlingly.
+
+“Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have given
+you--and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!” he mocked.
+“That was the price, my lord, of my hospitality--which was to include
+my wife's harlotry. Three hundred ducats! Ha! ha! Three hundred thousand
+million years in Hell! That is the price, my lord--the price that you
+shall pay, for I present the reckoning and enforce it. You shall be
+shriven in iron--you and your wanton after you.
+
+“Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for having
+sent a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it? Shall
+I? Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledge
+inform me.”
+
+I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomous
+mockery. But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open. I peered
+down into the darkness and hesitated. The wall was creeper-clad to the
+window's height; but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis would
+never bear me. I hesitated. Then I resolved to jump. It was but little
+more than some twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to daunt
+an active lad of my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below. It
+should have been done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitation
+was my ruin.
+
+Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, after
+all, his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like an
+infuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater than
+his usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
+
+Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at
+me, too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
+
+When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was
+overwhelming.
+
+“You!” he gasped, and then his voice mounting--“You dog!” he screamed.
+“So it was you! You!”
+
+He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with
+horrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise. “You!” he
+repeated. “Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the ways
+of St. Augustine--in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you
+postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night--with this!”
+ And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down
+the livid blade.
+
+“I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!” And thereupon he leapt at me.
+
+I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden
+activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of
+Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
+
+He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He
+avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement
+that was still closed.
+
+And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the
+door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
+
+We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber between
+us, both of us breathing hard.
+
+Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; for
+it was plain that he meant to have my life. By a great ill-chance it
+happened that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as
+Giuliana's escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner
+where I had set it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti,
+never suspecting my quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand,
+did nothing to prevent my reaching it.
+
+Seeing me armed, he laughed. “Ho, ho! The saint-at-arms!” he mocked.
+“You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!” And he advanced
+upon me in long stealthy strides. The width of the table was between us,
+and he smote at me across it. I parried, and cut back at him, for being
+armed now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child.
+Little he knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thing
+which once learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make us
+slow.
+
+He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke. And now,
+I can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there was
+no intent. It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening.
+I had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what they
+have been taught.
+
+To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard of
+Marozzo's which is known as the iron girdle. I parried and on the stroke
+I lunged, and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank the
+half of my iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that the
+thing was possible.
+
+I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of his
+face become one of intense astonishment.
+
+He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from his
+one hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, still
+looking at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on to
+my rigidly held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons.
+For a moment he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mine
+and the table against which his weight was leaning. Then I withdrew the
+blade, and in the same movement flung the weapon from me. Before the
+sword had rattled to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heap
+beyond the table, so that I could see no more than the yellow, egg-like
+top of his bald head.
+
+Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity and
+a queer awe. Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I had
+done. It might be that I had killed Fifanti. It might be. And slowly,
+gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of its
+horrid meaning.
+
+Then from the passage came a stifled scream, and Giuliana staggered
+forward, one hand holding flimsy draperies to her heaving bosom, the
+other at her mouth, which had grown hideously loose and uncontrolled.
+Her glowing copper hair, all unbound, fell about her shoulders like a
+mantle.
+
+Behind her with ashen face and trembling limbs came old Busio. He
+was groaning and ringing his hands. Thus I saw the pair of them creep
+forward to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword had
+gone through him.
+
+But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them--the faithful servant and
+the unfaithful wife. All that remained, huddled there at the foot of the
+table, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments.
+
+It was Giuliana who gave me the information. With a courage that was
+almost stupendous she looked down into his face, then up into mine,
+which I doubt not was as livid.
+
+“You have killed him,” she whispered. “He is dead.”
+
+He was dead and I had killed him! My lips moved.
+
+“He would have killed me,” I answered in a strangled voice, and knew
+that what I said was a sort of lie to cloak the foulness of my deed.
+
+Old Busio uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees
+beside the master he had served so long--the master who would never more
+need servant in this world.
+
+It was upon the wings of that pitiful cry that the full understanding
+of the thing I had done was borne in upon my soul. I bowed my head, and
+took my face in my hands. I saw myself in that moment for what I was. I
+accounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement,
+surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency could
+find no pardon.
+
+I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities;
+all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in this
+hour's work. And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant,
+who indeed had been my victim--whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
+
+Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing and
+self-contempt. And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror of
+it all was full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft,
+quivering voice murmured urgently in my ear:
+
+“Agostino, we must go; we must go.”
+
+I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which she
+shrank in fear.
+
+“We?” I snarled at her. “We?” I repeated still more fiercely, and drove
+her back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
+
+O, I should have imagined--had I had time in which to imagine
+anything--that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit of
+infamy. But it seems that one more downward step remained me; and that
+step I took. Not by act, nor yet by speech, but just by thought.
+
+For without the manliness to take the whole blame of this great crime
+upon myself, I must in my soul and mind fling the burden of it upon her.
+Like Adam of old, I blamed the woman, and charged her in my thoughts
+with having tempted me. Charging her thus, I loathed her as the cause of
+all this sin that had engulfed me; loathed her in that moment as a thing
+unclean and hideous; loathed her with a completeness of loathing such as
+I had never experienced before for any fellow-creature.
+
+Instead of beholding in her one whom I had dragged with me into my pit
+of sin and whom it was incumbent upon my manhood thenceforth to shelter
+and protect from the consequences of my own iniquity, I attributed to
+her the blame of all that had befallen.
+
+To-day I know that in so doing I did no more than justice. But it was
+not justly done. I had then no such knowledge as I have to-day by which
+to correct my judgment. The worst I had the right to think of her in
+that hour was that her guilt was something less than mine. In thinking
+otherwise was it that I took that last step to the very bottom of the
+hell that I had myself created for myself that night.
+
+The rest was as nothing by comparison. I have said that it was not by
+act or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it was
+by both. First, in that fiercely echoed “We?” that I hurled at her to
+strike her from me; then in my precipitate flight alone.
+
+How I stumbled from that room I scarcely know. The events of the time
+that followed immediately upon Fifanti's death are all blurred as the
+impressions of a sick man's dream.
+
+I dimly remember that as she backed away from me until her shoulders
+touched the wall, that as she stood so, all white and lovely as any
+snare that Satan ever devised for man's ruin, staring at me with mutely
+pleading eyes, I staggered forward, avoiding the sight of that dreadful
+huddle on the floor, over which Busio was weeping foolishly.
+
+As I stepped a sudden moisture struck my stockinged feet. Its nature
+I knew by instinct upon the instant, and filled by it with a sudden
+unreasoning terror, I dashed with a loud cry from the room.
+
+Along the passage and down the dark stairs I plunged until I reached
+the door of the house. It stood open and I went heedlessly forth. From
+overhead I heard Giuliana calling me in a voice that held a note of
+despair. But I never checked in my headlong career.
+
+Fifanti's mule, I have since reflected, was tethered near the steps. I
+saw the beast, but it conveyed no meaning to my mind, which I think was
+numbed. I sped past it and on, through the gate, round the road by the
+Po, under the walls of the city, and so away into the open country.
+
+Without cap, without doublet, without shoes, just in my trunks and shirt
+and hose, as I was, I ran, heading by instinct for home as heads the
+animal that has been overtaken by danger whilst abroad. Never since
+Phidippides, the Athenian courier, do I believe that any man had run as
+desperately and doggedly as I ran that night.
+
+By dawn, having in some three hours put twenty miles or so between
+myself and Piacenza, I staggered exhausted and with cut and bleeding
+feet through the open door of a peasant's house.
+
+The family, sat at breakfast in the stone-flagged room into which I
+stumbled. I halted under their astonished eyes.
+
+“I am the Lord of Mondolfo,” I panted hoarsely, “and I need a beast to
+carry me home.”
+
+The head of that considerable family, a grizzled, suntanned peasant,
+rose from his seat and pondered my condition with a glance that was
+laden with mistrust.
+
+“The Lord of Mondolfo--you, thus?” quoth he. “Now, by Bacchus, I am the
+Pope of Rome!”
+
+But his wife, more tender-hearted, saw in my disorder cause for pity
+rather than irony.
+
+“Poor lad!” she murmured, as I staggered and fell into a chair, unable
+longer to retain my feet. She rose immediately, and came hurrying
+towards me with a basin of goat's milk. The draught refreshed my body as
+her gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul. Seated there, her
+stout arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherly
+breast, I was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state by
+the sweet touch of sympathy, for which may God reward her.
+
+I rested in that place awhile. Three hours I slept upon a litter of
+straw in an outhouse; whereupon, strengthened by my repose, I renewed my
+claim to be the Lord of Mondolfo and my demand for a horse to carry me
+to my fortress.
+
+Still doubting me too much to trust me alone with any beast of his, the
+peasant nevertheless fetched out a couple of mules and set out with me
+for Mondolfo.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HOME-COMING
+
+
+It was still early morning when we came into the town of Mondolfo, my
+peasant escort and I.
+
+The day being Sunday there was little stir in the town at such an hour,
+and it presented a very different appearance from that which it had worn
+when last I had seen it. But the difference lay not only in the absence
+of bustle and the few folk abroad now as compared with that market-day
+on which, departing, I had ridden through it. I viewed the place to-day
+with eyes that were able to draw comparisons, and after the wide streets
+and imposing buildings of Piacenza, I found my little township mean and
+rustic.
+
+We passed the Duomo, consecrated to Our Lady of Mondolfo. Its
+portals stood wide, and in the opening swung a heavy crimson curtain,
+embroidered with a huge golden cross which was bellying outward like an
+enormous gonfalon. On the steps a few crippled beggars whined, and a few
+faithful took their way to early Mass.
+
+On, up the steep, ill-paved street we climbed to the mighty grey citadel
+looming on the hill's crest, like a gigantic guardian brooding over the
+city of his trust. We crossed the drawbridge unchallenged, passed under
+the tunnel of the gateway, and so came into the vast, untenanted bailey
+of the fortress.
+
+I looked about me, beat my hands together, and raised my voice to shout
+
+“Ola! Ola!”
+
+In answer to my call the door of the guardhouse opened presently, and
+a man looked out. He frowned at first; then his brows went up and his
+mouth fell open.
+
+“It is the Madonnino!” he shouted over his shoulder, and hurried forward
+to take my reins, uttering words of respectful welcome, which seemed to
+relieve the fears of my peasant, who had never quite believed me what I
+proclaimed myself.
+
+There was a stir in the guardhouse, and two or three men of the absurd
+garrison my mother kept there shuffled in the doorway, whilst a burly
+fellow in leather with a sword girt on him thrust his way through
+and hurried forward, limping slightly. In the dark, lowering face
+I recognized my old friend Rinolfo, and I marvelled to see him thus
+accoutred.
+
+He halted before me, and gave me a stiff and unfriendly salute; then he
+bade the man-at-arms to hold my stirrup.
+
+“What is your authority here, Rinolfo?” I asked him shortly.
+
+I am the castellan,” he informed me.
+
+“The castellan? But what of Messer Giorgio?”
+
+“He died a month ago.”
+
+“And who gave you this authority?”
+
+“Madonna the Countess, in some recompense for the hurt you did me,” he
+replied, thrusting forward his lame leg.
+
+His tone was surly and hostile; but it provoked no resentment in me
+now. I deserved his unfriendliness. I had crippled him. At the moment I
+forgot the provocation I had received--forgot that since he had raised
+his hand to his lord, it would have been no great harshness to have
+hanged him. I saw in him but another instance of my wickedness, another
+sufferer at my hands; and I hung my head under the rebuke implicit in
+his surly tone and glance.
+
+“I had not thought, Rinolfo, to do you an abiding hurt,” said I, and
+here checked, bethinking me that I lied; for had I not expressed regret
+that I had not broken his neck?
+
+I got down slowly and painfully, for my limbs were stiff and my feet
+very sore. He smiled darkly at my words and my sudden faltering; but I
+affected not to see.
+
+“Where is Madonna?” I asked.
+
+“She will have returned by now from chapel,” he answered.
+
+I turned to the man-at-arms. “You will announce me,” I bade him. “And
+you, Rinolfo, see to these beasts and to this good fellow here. Let him
+have wine and food and what he needs. I will see him again ere he sets
+forth.”
+
+Rinolfo muttered that all should be done as I ordered, and I signed to
+the man-at-arms to lead the way.
+
+We went up the steps and into the cool of the great hall. There the
+soldier, whose every feeling had been outraged no doubt by Rinolfo's
+attitude towards his lord, ventured to express his sympathy and
+indignation.
+
+“Rinolfo is a black beast, Madonnino,” he muttered.
+
+“We are all black beasts, Eugenio,” I answered heavily, and so startled
+him by words and tone that he ventured upon no further speech, but led
+me straight to my mother's private dining-room, opened the door and
+calmly announced me.
+
+“Madonna, here is my Lord Agostino.”
+
+I heard the gasp she uttered before I caught sight of her. She was
+seated at the table's head in her great wooden chair, and Fra Gervasio
+was pacing the rush-strewn floor in talk with her, his hands behind his
+back, his head thrust forward.
+
+At the announcement he straightened suddenly and wheeled round to face
+me, inquiry in his glance. My mother, too, half rose, and remained
+so, staring at me, her amazement at seeing me increased by the strange
+appearance I presented.
+
+Eugenio closed the door and departed, leaving me standing there, just
+within it; and for a moment no word was spoken.
+
+The cheerless, familiar room, looking more cheerless than it had done
+of old, with its high-set windows and ghastly Crucifix, affected me in
+a singular manner. In this room I had known a sort of peace--the peace
+that is peculiarly childhood's own, whatever the troubles that may haunt
+it. I came into it now with hell in my soul, sin-blackened before God
+and man, a fugitive in quest of sanctuary.
+
+A knot rose in my throat and paralysed awhile my speech. Then with a
+sudden sob, I sprang forward and hobbled to her upon my wounded feet. I
+flung myself down upon my knees, buried my head in her lap, and all that
+I could cry was:
+
+“Mother! Mother!”
+
+Whether perceiving my disorder, my distraught and suffering condition,
+what remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry
+acting like a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of
+piety had long since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs
+that had long since been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond
+between us, her tone was more kindly and gentle than I had ever known
+it.
+
+“Agostino, my child! Why are you here?” And her wax-like fingers very
+gently touched my head. “Why are you here--and thus? What has happened
+to you?”
+
+“Me miserable!” I groaned.
+
+“What is it?” she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.
+
+At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.
+
+“Mother, I am a sinner,” I faltered miserably.
+
+I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and
+contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some
+shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his
+voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.
+
+“Sinners are we all, Agostino. But repentance purges sin. Do not abandon
+yourself to despair, my son.”
+
+But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.
+
+“What is it? Wretched boy, what have you done?” And the cold repugnance
+in her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.
+
+“O God help me! God help me!” I groaned miserably.
+
+Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that
+was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+“Dear Agostino,” he murmured, “would you find it easier to tell me
+first? Will you confess to me, my son? Will you let me lift this burden
+from your soul?”
+
+Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face.
+I caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away.
+“If there were more priests like you,” I cried, “there would be fewer
+sinners like me.”
+
+A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a
+gleam of pale sunshine from an over-clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle,
+soothing words of the Divine Mercy.
+
+I staggered to my bruised feet. “I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio,” I
+said, “and afterwards we will tell my mother.”
+
+She looked as she would make demur. But Fra Gervasio checked any such
+intent.
+
+“It is best so, Madonna,” he said gravely. “His most urgent need is the
+consolation that the Church alone can give.”
+
+He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth. We went to his
+modest chamber, with its waxed floor, the hard, narrow pallet upon
+which he slept, the blue and gold image of the Virgin, and the little
+writing-pulpit upon which lay open a manuscript he was illuminating,
+for he was very skilled in that art which already was falling into
+desuetude.
+
+At this pulpit, by the window, he took his seat, and signed to me to
+kneel. I recited the Confiteor. Thereafter, with my face buried in my
+hands, my soul writhing in an agony of penitence and shame, I poured out
+the hideous tale of the evil I had wrought.
+
+Rarely did he speak while I was at that recitation. Save when I halted
+or hesitated he would interject a word of pity and of comfort that fell
+like a blessed balsam upon my spiritual wounds and gave me strength to
+pursue my awful story.
+
+When I had done and he knew me to the full for the murderer and
+adulterer that I was, there fell a long pause, during which I waited as
+a felon awaits sentence. But it did not come. Instead, he set himself
+to examine more closely the thing I had told him. He probed it with
+a question here and a question there, and all of a shrewdness that
+revealed the extent of his knowledge of humanity, and the infinite
+compassion and gentleness that must be the inevitable fruits of such sad
+knowledge.
+
+He caused me to go back to the very day of my arrival at Fifanti's; and
+thence, step by step, he led me again over the road that in the past
+four months I had trodden, until he had traced the evil to its very
+source, and could see the tiny spring that had formed the brook which,
+gathering volume as it went, had swollen at last into a raging torrent
+that had laid waste its narrow confines.
+
+“Who that knows all that goes to the making of a sin shall dare to
+condemn a sinner?” he cried at last, so that I looked up at him,
+startled, and penetrated by a ray of hope and comfort. He returned my
+glance with one of infinite pity.
+
+“It is the woman here upon whom must fall the greater blame,” said he.
+
+But at that I cried out in hot remonstrance, adding that I had yet
+another vileness to confess--for it was now that for the first time I
+realized it. And I related to him how last night I had repudiated her,
+cast her off and fled, leaving her to bear the punishment alone.
+
+Of my conduct in that he withheld his criticism. “The sin is hers,” he
+repeated. “She was a wife, and the adultery is hers. More, she was the
+seducer. It was she who debauched your mind with lascivious readings,
+and tore away the foundations of virtue from your soul. If in the
+cataclysm that followed she was crushed and smothered, it is no more
+than she had incurred.”
+
+I still protested that this view was all too lenient to me, that it
+sprang of his love for me, that it was not just. Thereupon he began to
+make clear to me many things that may have been clear to you worldly
+ones who have read my scrupulous and exact confessions, but which at the
+time were still all wrapped in obscurity for me.
+
+It was as if he held up a mirror--an intelligent and informing
+mirror--in which my deeds were reflected by the light of his own deep
+knowledge. He showed me the gradual seduction to which I had been
+subjected; he showed me Giuliana as she really was, as she must be from
+what I had told him; he reminded me that she was older by ten years than
+I, and greatly skilled in men and worldliness; that where I had gone
+blindly, never seeing what was the inevitable goal and end of the road
+I trod, she had consciously been leading me thither, knowing full well
+what the end must be, and desiring it.
+
+As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been
+done in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the
+poor man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame.
+Largely had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his
+heart. A good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which
+he knew to be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him
+to trap and slay his enemy.
+
+And the greatest blame of all he attached to that Messer Arcolano who
+had recommended Fifanti to my mother as a tutor for me, knowing full
+well--as he must have known--what manner of house the doctor kept
+and what manner of wanton was Giuliana. Arcolano had sought to serve
+Fifanti's interests in pretending to serve mine and my mother's; and my
+mother should be enlightened that at last she might know that evil man
+for what he really was.
+
+“But all this,” he concluded, “does not mean, Agostino, that you are
+to regard yourself as other than a great sinner. You have sinned
+monstrously, even when all these extenuations are considered.”
+
+“I know, I know!” I groaned.
+
+“But beyond forgiveness no man has ever sinned, nor have you now. So
+that your repentance is deep and real, and when by some penance that
+I shall impose you shall have cleansed yourself of all this mire that
+clings to your poor soul, you shall have absolution from me.”
+
+“Impose your penance,” I cried eagerly. “There is none I will not
+undertake, to purchase pardon and some little peace of mind.
+
+“I will consider it,” he answered gravely. “And now let us seek your
+mother. She must be told, for a great deal hangs upon this, Agostino.
+The career to which you were destined is no longer for you, my son.”
+
+My spirit quailed under those last words; and yet I felt an immense
+relief at the same time, as if some overwhelming burden had been lifted
+from me.
+
+“I am indeed unworthy,” I said.
+
+“It is not your unworthiness that I am considering, my son, but your
+nature. The world calls you over-strongly. It is not for nothing that
+you are the child of Giovanni d'Anguissola. His blood runs thick in your
+veins, and it is very human blood. For such as you there is no hope
+in the cloister. Your mother must be made to realize it, and she must
+abandon her dreams concerning you. It will wound her very sorely. But
+better that than...” He shrugged and rose. “Come, Agostino.”
+
+And I rose, too, immensely comforted and soothed already, for all that
+I was yet very far from ease or peace of mind. Outside his room he set a
+hand upon my arm.
+
+“Wait,” he said, “we have ministered in some degree to your poor spirit.
+Let us take thought for the body, too. You need garments and other
+things. Come with me.”
+
+He led me up to my own little chamber, took fresh raiment for me from
+a press, called Lorenza and bade her bring bread and wine, vinegar and
+warm water.
+
+In a very weak dilution of the latter he bade me bathe my lacerated
+feet, and then he found fine strips of linen in which to bind them ere I
+drew fresh hose and shoes. And meanwhile munching my bread and salt and
+taking great draughts of the pure if somewhat sour wine, my mental peace
+was increased by the refreshment of my body.
+
+At last I stood up more myself than I had been in these last twelve
+awful hours--for it was just noon, and into twelve hours had been packed
+the events that well might have filled a lifetime.
+
+He put an arm about my shoulder, fondly as a father might have done, and
+so led me below again and into my mother's presence.
+
+We found her kneeling before the Crucifix, telling her beads; and we
+stood waiting a few moments in silence until with a sigh and a rustle of
+her stiff black dress she rose gently and turned to face us.
+
+My heart thudded violently in that moment, as I looked into that pale
+face of sorrow. Then Fra Gervasio began to speak very gently and softly.
+
+“Your son, Madonna, has been lured into sin by a wanton woman,” he
+began, and there she interrupted him with a sudden and very piteous cry.
+
+“Not that! Ah, not that!” she exclaimed, putting out hands gropingly
+before her.
+
+“That and more, Madonna,” he answered gravely. “Be brave to hear the
+rest. It is a very piteous story. But the founts of Divine Mercy are
+inexhaustible, and Agostino shall drink therefrom when by penitence he
+shall have cleansed his lips.”
+
+Very erect she stood there, silent and ghostly, her face looking
+diaphanous by contrast with the black draperies that enshrouded her,
+whilst her eyes were great pools of sorrow. Poor, poor mother! It is the
+last recollection I have of her; for after that day we never met again,
+and I would give ten years to purgatory if I might recall the last words
+that passed between us.
+
+As briefly as possible and ever thrusting into the foreground the
+immensity of the snare that had been spread for me and the temptation
+that had enmeshed me, Gervasio told her the story of my sin.
+
+She heard him through in that immovable attitude, one hand pressed to
+her heart, her poor pale lips moving now and again, but no sound coming
+from them, her face a white mask of pain and horror.
+
+When he had done, so wrought upon was I by the sorrow of that
+countenance that I went forward again to fling myself upon my knees
+before her.
+
+“Mother, forgive!” I pleaded. And getting no answer I put up my hands to
+take hers. “Mother!” I cried, and the tears were streaming down my face.
+
+But she recoiled before me.
+
+“Are you my child?” she asked in a voice of horror. “Are you the thing
+that has grown out of that little child I vowed to chastity and to
+God? Then has my sin overtaken me--the sin of bearing a son to Giovanni
+d'Anguissola, that enemy of God!”
+
+“Ah, mother, mother!” I cried again, thinking perhaps by that
+all-powerful word to move her yet to pity and to gentleness.
+
+“Madonna,” cried Gervasio, “be merciful if you would look for mercy.”
+
+“He has falsified my vows,” she answered stonily. “He was my votive
+offering for the life of his impious father. I am punished for the
+unworthiness of my offering and the unworthiness of the cause in which I
+offered it. Accursed is the fruit of my womb!” She moaned, and sank her
+head upon her breast.
+
+“I will atone!” I cried, overwhelmed to see her so distraught.
+
+She wrung her pale hands.
+
+“Atone!” she cried, and her voice trembled. “Go then, and atone. But
+never let me see you more; never let me be reminded of the sinner to
+whom I have given life. Go! Begone!” And she raised a hand in tragical
+dismissal.
+
+I shrank back, and came slowly to my feet. And then Gervasio spoke, and
+his voice boomed and thundered with righteous indignation.
+
+“Madonna, this is inhuman!” he denounced. “Shall you dare to hope for
+mercy being yourself unmerciful?”
+
+“I shall pray for strength to forgive him; but the sight of him might
+tempt me back with the memory of the thing that he has done,” she
+answered, and she had returned to that cold and terrible reserve of
+hers.
+
+And then things that Fra Gervasio had repressed for years welled up in a
+mighty flood. “He is your son, and he is as you have made him.”
+
+“As I have made him?” quoth she, and her glance challenged the friar.
+
+“By what right did you make of him a votive offering? By what right
+did you seek to consecrate a child unborn to a claustral life without
+thought of his character, without reck of the desires that should be
+his? By what right did you make yourself the arbiter of the future of a
+man unborn?”
+
+“By what right?” quoth she. “Are you a priest, and do you ask me by what
+right I vowed him to the service of God?”
+
+“And is there, think you, no way of serving God but in the sterility of
+the cloister?” he demanded. “Why, since no man is born to damnation,
+and since by your reasoning the world must mean damnation, then all men
+should be encloistered, and soon, thus, there would be an end to man.
+You are too arrogant, Madonna, when you presume to judge what pleases
+God. Beware lest you fall into the sin of the Pharisee, for often have I
+seen you stand in danger of it.”
+
+She swayed as if her strength were failing her, and again her pale lips
+moved.
+
+“Enough, Fra Gervasio! I will go,” I cried.
+
+“Nay, it is not yet enough,” he answered, and strode down the room until
+he stood between her and me. “He is what you have made him,” he repeated
+in denunciation. “Had you studied his nature and his inclinations, had
+you left them free to develop along the way that God intended, you would
+have seen whether or not the cloister called him; and then would have
+been the time to have taken a resolve. But you thought to change his
+nature by repressing it; and you never saw that if he was not such as
+you would have him be, then most surely would you doom him to damnation
+by making an evil priest of him.
+
+“In your Pharisaic arrogance, Madonna, you sought to superimpose your
+will to God's will concerning him--you confounded God's will with your
+own. And so his sins recoil upon you as much as upon any. Therefore,
+Madonna, do I bid you beware. Take a humbler view if you would be
+acceptable in the Divine sight. Learn to forgive, for I say to you
+to-day that you stand as greatly in need of forgiveness for the thing
+that Agostino has done, as does Agostino himself.”
+
+He paused at last, and stood trembling before her, his eyes aflame, his
+high cheek-bones faintly tinted. And she measured him very calmly and
+coldly with her sombre eyes.
+
+“Are you a priest?” she asked with steady scorn. “Are you indeed a
+priest?” And then her invective was loosened, and her voice shrilled and
+mounted as her anger swayed her. “What a snake have I harboured here!”
+ she cried. “Blasphemer! You show me clearly whence came the impiety and
+ungodliness of Giovanni d'Anguissola. It had the same source as your
+own. It was suckled at your mother's breast.”
+
+A sob shook him. “My mother is dead, Madonna!” he rebuked her.
+
+“She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what
+a power for sin she has brought forth. Go, pitiful friar. Go, both of
+you. You are very choicely mated. Begone from Mondolfo, and never let me
+see either of you more.”
+
+She staggered to her great chair and sank into it, whilst we stood
+there, mute, regarding her. For myself, it was with difficulty that I
+repressed the burning things that rose to my lips. Had I given free rein
+to my tongue, I had made of it a whip of scorpions. And my anger sprang
+not from the things she said to me, but from what she said to that
+saintly man who held out a hand to help me out of the morass of sin in
+which I was being sunk. That he, that sweet and charitable follower of
+his Master, should be abused by her, should be dubbed blasphemer
+and have the cherished memory of his mother defiled by her pietistic
+utterances, was something that inflamed me horribly.
+
+But he set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+“Come, Agostino,” he said very gently. He was calm once more. “We will
+go, as we are bidden, you and I.”
+
+And then, out of the sweetness of his nature, he forged all unwittingly
+the very iron that should penetrate most surely into her soul.
+
+“Forgive her, my son. Forgive her as you need forgiveness. She does not
+understand the thing she does. Come, we will pray for her, that God in
+His infinite mercy may teach her humility and true knowledge of Him.”
+
+I saw her start as if she had been stung.
+
+“Blasphemer, begone!” she cried again; and her voice was hoarse with
+suppressed anger.
+
+And then the door was suddenly flung open, and Rinolfo clanked in, very
+martial and important, his hand thrusting up his sword behind him.
+
+“Madonna,” he announced, “the Captain of Justice from Piacenza is here.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+
+There was a moment's silence after Rinolfo had flung that announcement.
+
+“The Captain of Justice?” quoth my mother at length, her voice startled.
+“What does he seek?”
+
+“The person of my Lord Agostino d'Anguissola,” said Rinolfo steadily.
+
+She sighed very heavily. “A felon's end!” she murmured, and turned to
+me. “If thus you may expiate your sins,” she said, speaking more gently,
+“let the will of Heaven be done. Admit the captain, Ser Rinolfo.”
+
+He bowed, and turned sharply to depart.
+
+“Stay!” I cried, and rooted him there by the imperative note of my
+command.
+
+Fra Gervasio was more than right when he said that mine was not a nature
+for the cloister. In that moment I might have realized it to the full by
+the readiness with which the thought of battle occurred to me, and more
+by the anticipatory glow that warmed me at the very thought of it. I was
+the very son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.
+
+“What force attends the captain?” I inquired.
+
+“He has six mounted men with him,” replied Rinolfo. “In that case,” I
+answered, “you will bid him begone in my name.”
+
+“And if he should not go?” was Rinolfo's impudent question.
+
+“You will tell him that I will drive him hence--him and his braves. We
+keep a garrison of a score of men at least--sufficient to compel him to
+depart.”
+
+“He will return again with more,” said Rinolfo.
+
+“Does that concern you?” I snapped. “Let him return with what he
+pleases. To-day I enrol more forces from the countryside, take up the
+bridge and mount our cannon. This is my lair and fortress, and I'll
+defend it and myself as becomes my name and blood. For I am the lord and
+master here, and the Lord of Mondolfo is not to be dragged away thus at
+the heels of a Captain of Justice. You have my orders, obey them. About
+it, sir.”
+
+Circumstances had shown me the way that I must take, and the folly of
+going forth a fugitive outcast at my mother's bidding. I was Lord of
+Mondolfo, as I had said, and they should know and feel it from this
+hour--all of them, not excepting my mother.
+
+But I reckoned without the hatred Rinolfo bore me. Instead of the prompt
+obedience that I had looked for, he had turned again to my mother.
+
+“Is it your wish, Madonna?” he inquired.
+
+“It is my wish that counts, you knave,” I thundered and advanced upon
+him.
+
+But he fronted me intrepidly. “I hold my office from my Lady the
+Countess. I obey none other here.”
+
+“Body of God! Do you defy me?” I cried. “Am I Lord of Mondolfo, or am
+I a lackey in my own house? You'ld best obey me ere I break you, Ser
+Rinolfo. We shall see whether the men will take my orders,” I added
+confidently.
+
+The faintest smile illumined his dark face. “The men will not stir a
+finger at the bidding of any but Madonna the Countess and myself,” he
+answered hardily.
+
+It was by an effort that I refrained from striking him. And then my
+mother spoke again.
+
+“It is as Ser Rinolfo says,” she informed me. “So cease this futile
+resistance, sir son, and accept the expiation that is offered you.”
+
+I looked at her, she avoiding my glance.
+
+“Madonna, I cannot think that it is so,” said I. “These men have known
+me since I was a little lad. Many of them have followed the fortunes of
+my father. They'll never turn their backs upon his son in the hour of
+his need. They are not all so inhuman as my mother.”
+
+“You mistake, sir,” said Rinolfo. “Of the men you knew but one or two
+remain. Most of our present force has been enrolled by me in the past
+month.”
+
+This was defeat, utter and pitiful. His tone was too confident, he was
+too sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if
+I made appeal to his knavish followers. My arms fell to my sides, and I
+looked at Gervasio. His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of
+sorrow as they rested on me.
+
+“It is true, Agostino,” he said.
+
+And as he spoke, Rinolfo limped out of the room to fetch the Captain of
+Justice, as my mother had bidden him; and his lips smiled cruelly.
+
+“Madam mother,” I said bitterly, “you do a monstrous thing. You usurp
+the power that is mine, and you deliver me--me, your son--to the
+gallows. I hope that, hereafter, when you come to realize to the full
+your deed, you will be able to give your conscience peace.”
+
+“My first duty is to God,” she answered; and to that pitiable answer
+there was nothing to be rejoined.
+
+So I turned my shoulder to her and stood waiting, Fra Gervasio beside
+me, clenching his hands in his impotence and mute despair. And then an
+approaching clank of mail heralded the coming of the captain.
+
+Rinolfo held the door, and Cosimo d'Anguissola entered with a firm,
+proud tread, two of his men, following at his heels.
+
+He wore a buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of
+mail; his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear
+was a steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet. Thigh-boots
+encased his legs; sword and dagger hung in the silver carriages at his
+belt; his handsome, aquiline face was very solemn.
+
+He bowed profoundly to my mother, who rose to respond, and then he
+flashed me one swift glance of his piercing eyes.
+
+“I deplore my business here,” he announced shortly. “No doubt it will be
+known to you already.” And he looked at me again, allowing his eyes to
+linger on my face.
+
+“I am ready, sir,” I said.
+
+“Then we had best be going, for I understand that none could be less
+welcome here than I. Yet in this, Madonna, let me assure you that there
+is nothing personal to myself. I am the slave of my office. I do but
+perform it.”
+
+“So much protesting where no doubt has been expressed,” said Fra
+Gervasio, “in itself casts a doubt upon your good faith. Are you not
+Cosimo d'Anguissola--my lord's cousin and heir?”
+
+“I am,” said he, “yet that has no part in this, sir friar.”
+
+“Then let it have part. Let it have the part it should have. Will you
+bear one of your own name and blood to the gallows? What will men say of
+that when they perceive your profit in the deed?”
+
+Cosimo looked him boldly between the eyes, his hawk-face very white.
+
+“Sir priest, I know not by what right you address me so. But you do
+me wrong. I am the Podesta of Piacenza bound by an oath that it would
+dishonour me to break; and break it I must or else fulfil my duty here.
+Enough!” he added, in his haughty, peremptory fashion. “Ser Agostino, I
+await your pleasure.”
+
+“I will appeal to Rome,” cried Fra Gervasio, now beside himself with
+grief.
+
+Cosimo smiled darkly, pityingly. “It is to be feared that Rome will turn
+a deaf ear to appeals on behalf of the son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.”
+
+And with that he motioned me to precede him. Silently I pressed Fra
+Gervasio's hand, and on that departed without so much as another look at
+my mother, who sat there a silent witness of a scene which she approved.
+
+The men-at-arms fell into step, one on either side of me, and so we
+passed out into the courtyard, where Cosimo's other men were waiting,
+and where was gathered the entire family of the castle--a gaping, rather
+frightened little crowd.
+
+They brought forth a mule for me, and I mounted. Then suddenly there was
+Fra Gervasio at my side again.
+
+“I, too, am going hence,” he said. “Be of good courage, Agostino. There
+is no effort I will not make on your behalf.” In a broken voice he added
+his farewells ere he stood back at the captain's peremptory bidding. The
+little troop closed round me, and thus, within a couple of hours of my
+coming, I departed again from Mondolfo, surrendered to the hangman
+by the pious hands of my mother, who on her knees, no doubt, would be
+thanking God for having afforded her the grace to act in so righteous a
+manner.
+
+Once only did my cousin address me, and that was soon after we had left
+the town behind us. He motioned the men away, and rode to my side. Then
+he looked at me with mocking, hating eyes.
+
+“You had done better to have continued in your saint's trade than have
+become so very magnificent a sinner,” said he.
+
+I did not answer him, and he rode on beside me in silence some little
+way.
+
+“Ah, well,” he sighed at last. “Your course has been a brief one, but
+very eventful. And who would have suspected so very fierce a wolf under
+so sheepish an outside? Body of God! You fooled us all, you and that
+white-faced trull.”
+
+He said it through his teeth with such a concentration of rage in his
+tones that it was easy to guess where the sore rankled.
+
+I looked at him gravely. “Does it become you, sir, do you think, to gird
+at one who is your prisoner?”
+
+“And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?” he flashed back
+fiercely. “Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool
+Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have
+been the only one excluded from her favours?”
+
+“You lie, you dog!” I blazed at him, so fiercely that the men turned in
+their saddles. He paled, and half raised the gauntleted hand in which he
+carried his whip. But he controlled himself, and barked an order to his
+followers:
+
+“Ride on, there!”
+
+When they had drawn off a little, and we were alone again, “I do not
+lie, sir,” he said. “It is a practice which I leave to shavelings of all
+degrees.”
+
+“If you say that she took aught from you, then you lie,” I repeated.
+
+He considered me steadily. “Fool!” he said at last. “Whence else
+came her jewels and fine clothes? From Fifanti, do you think--that
+impecunious pedant? Or perhaps you imagine that it was from Gambara?
+In time that grasping prelate might have made the Duke pay. But pay,
+himself? By the Blood of God! he was never known to pay for anything.
+
+“Or, yet again, do you suppose her finery was afforded her by
+Caro?--Messer Annibale Caro--who is so much in debt that he is never
+like to return to Piacenza, unless some dolt of a patron rewards him for
+his poetaster's labours.
+
+“No, no, my shaveling. It was I who paid--I who was the fool. God! I
+more than suspected the others. But you. You saint... You!”
+
+He flung up his head, and laughed bitterly and unpleasantly. “Ah,
+well!” he ended, “You are to pay, though in different kind. It is in the
+family, you see.” And abruptly raising his voice he shouted to the men
+to wait.
+
+Thereafter he rode ahead, alone and gloomy, whilst no less alone and
+gloomy rode I amid my guards. The thing he had revealed to me had torn
+away a veil from my silly eyes. It had made me understand a hundred
+little matters that hitherto had been puzzling me. And I saw how utterly
+and fatuously blind I had been to things which even Fra Gervasio had
+apprehended from just the relation he had drawn from me.
+
+It was as we were entering Piacenza by the Gate of San Lazzaro that I
+again drew my cousin to my side.
+
+“Sir Captain!” I called to him, for I could not bring myself to address
+him as cousin now. He came, inquiry in his eyes.
+
+“Where is she now?” I asked.
+
+He stared at me a moment, as if my effrontery astonished him. Then
+he shrugged and sneered. “I would I knew for certain,” was his fierce
+answer. “I would I knew. Then should I have the pair of you.” And I saw
+it in his face how unforgivingly he hated me out of his savage jealousy.
+“My Lord Gambara might tell you. I scarcely doubt it. Were I but
+certain, what a reckoning should I not present! He may be Governor of
+Piacenza, but were he Governor of Hell he should not escape me.” And
+with that he rode ahead again, and left me.
+
+The rumour of our coming sped through the streets ahead of us, and out
+of the houses poured the townsfolk to watch our passage and to point me
+out one to another with many whisperings and solemn head-waggings. And
+the farther we advanced, the greater was the concourse, until by the
+time we reached the square before the Communal Palace we found there
+what amounted to a mob awaiting us.
+
+My guards closed round me as if to protect me from that crowd. But I
+was strangely without fear, and presently I was to see how little cause
+there was for any, and to realize that the action of my guards was
+sprung from a very different motive.
+
+The people stood silent, and on every upturned face of which I caught a
+glimpse I saw something that was akin to pity. Presently, however, as we
+drew nearer to the Palace, a murmur began to rise. It swelled and grew
+fierce. Suddenly a cry rose vehement and clear.
+
+“Rescue! Rescue!”
+
+“He is the Lord of Mondolfo,” shouted one tall fellow, “and the
+Cardinal-legate makes a cat's-paw of him! He is to suffer for Messer
+Gambara's villainy!”
+
+Again he was answered by the cry--“Rescue! Rescue!” whilst some added an
+angry--“Death to the Legate!”
+
+Whilst I was deeply marvelling at all this, Cosimo looked at me over
+his shoulder, and though his lips were steady, his eyes seemed to smile,
+charged with a message of derision--and something more, something that I
+could not read. Then I heard his hard, metallic voice.
+
+“Back there, you curs! To your kennels! Out of the way, or we ride you
+down.”
+
+He had drawn his sword, and his white hawk-face was so cruel and
+determined that they fell away before him and their cries died down.
+
+We passed into the courtyard of the Communal Palace, and the great
+studded gates were slammed in the faces of the mob, and barred.
+
+I got down from my mule, and was conducted at Cosimo's bidding to one
+of the dungeons under the Palace, where I was left with the announcement
+that I must present myself to-morrow before the Tribunal of the Ruota.
+
+I flung myself down upon the dried rushes that had been heaped in
+a corner to do duty for a bed, and I abandoned myself to my bitter
+thoughts. In particular I pondered the meaning of the crowd's strange
+attitude. Nor was it a riddle difficult to resolve. It was evident that
+believing Gambara, as they did, to be Giuliana's lover, and informed
+perhaps--invention swelling rumour as it will--that the Cardinal-legate
+had ridden late last night to Fifanti's house, it had been put about
+that the foul murder done there was Messer Gambara's work.
+
+Thus was the Legate reaping the harvest of all the hatred he had sown,
+of all the tyranny and extortion of his iron rule in Piacenza. And
+willing to believe any evil of the man they hated, they not only laid
+Fifanti's death at his door, but they went to further lengths and
+accounted that I was the cat's-paw; that I was to be sacrificed to save
+the Legate's face and reputation. They remembered perhaps the ill-odour
+in which we Anguissola of Mondolfo had been at Rome, for the ghibelline
+leanings that ever had been ours and for the rebellion of my father
+against the Pontifical sway; and their conclusions gathered a sort of
+confirmation from that circumstance.
+
+Long upon the very edge of mutiny and revolt against Gambara's
+injustice, it had needed but what seemed a crowning one such as this to
+quicken their hatred into expression.
+
+It was all very clear and obvious, and it seemed to me that to-morrow's
+trial should be very interesting. I had but to deny; I had but to make
+myself the mouthpiece of the rumour that was abroad, and Heaven alone
+could foretell what the consequences might be.
+
+Then I smiled bitterly to myself. Deny? O, no! That was a last vileness
+I could not perpetrate. The Ruota should hear the truth, and Gambara
+should be left to shelter Giuliana, who--Cosimo was assured--had fled to
+him in her need as to a natural protector.
+
+It was a bitter thought. The intensity of that bitterness made me
+realize with alarm how it still was with me. And pondering this, I fell
+asleep, utterly worn out in body and in mind by the awful turmoil of
+that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+
+I awakened to find a man standing beside me. He was muffled in a black
+cloak and carried a lanthorn. Behind him the door gaped as he had left
+it.
+
+Instantly I sat up, conscious of my circumstance and surroundings, and
+at my movement this visitor spoke.
+
+“You sleep very soundly for a man in your case.” said he, and the voice
+was that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical.
+
+He set down the lanthorn on a stool, whence it shed a wheel of yellow
+light intersected with black beams. His cloak fell apart, and I saw that
+he was dressed for riding, very plainly, in sombre garments, and that he
+was armed.
+
+He stood slightly to one side that the light might fall upon my face,
+leaving his own in shadow; thus he considered me for some moments in
+silence. At last, very slowly, very bitterly, shaking his head as he
+spoke.
+
+“You fool, you clumsy fool!” he said.
+
+Having drawn, as you have seen, my own conclusions from the attitude of
+the mob, I was in little doubt as to the precise bearing of his words.
+
+I answered him sincerely. “If folly were all my guilt,” said I, “it
+would be well.”
+
+He sniffed impatiently. “Still sanctimonious!” he sneered. “Tcha! Up
+now, and play the man, at least. You have shed your robe of sanctity,
+Messer Agostino; have done with pretence!”
+
+“I do not pretend,” I answered him. “And as for playing the man, I shall
+accept what punishment the law may have for me with fortitude at least.
+If I can but expiate...”
+
+“Expiate a fig!” he snapped, interrupting me. “Why do you suppose that I
+am here?”
+
+“I wait to learn.”
+
+“I am here because through your folly you have undone us all. What
+need,” he cried, the anger of expostulation quivering in his voice,
+“what need was there to kill that oaf Fifanti?”
+
+“He would have killed me,” said I. “I slew him in self-defence.”
+
+“Ha! And do you hope to save your neck with such a plea?”
+
+“Nay. I have no thought of urging it. I but tell it you.”
+
+“There is not the need to tell me anything,” he answered, his anger
+very plain. “I am very well informed of all. Rather, let me tell you
+something. Do you realize, sir, that you have made it impossible for me
+to abide another day in Piacenza?”
+
+“I am sorry...” I began lamely.
+
+“Present your regrets to Satan,” he snapped. “Me they avail nothing.
+I am put to the necessity of abandoning my governorship and fleeing by
+night like a hunted thief. And I have you to thank for it. You see me on
+the point of departure. My horses wait above. So you may add my ruin to
+the other fine things you accomplished yesternight. For a saint you are
+over-busy, sir.” And he turned away and strode the length of my cell and
+back, so that, at last, I had a glimpse of his face, which was drawn and
+scowling. Gone now was the last vestige of his habitual silkiness; the
+pomander-ball hung neglected, and his delicate fingers tugged viciously
+at his little pointed beard, his great sapphire ring flashing sombrely.
+
+“Look you, Ser Agostino, I could kill you and take joy in it. I could,
+by God!”
+
+His eyes upon me, he drew from his breast a folded paper. “Instead, I
+bring you liberty. I open your doors for you, and bid you escape. Here,
+man, take this paper. Present it to the officer at the Fodesta Gate.
+He will let you pass. And then away with you, out of the territory of
+Piacenza.”
+
+For an instant my heart-beats seemed suspended by astonishment. I swung
+my legs round, and half rose, excitedly. Then I sank back again. My mind
+was made up. I was tired of the world; sick of life the first draught of
+which had turned so bitter in my throat. If by my death I might expiate
+my sins and win pardon by my submission and humility, it was all I could
+desire. I should be glad to be released from all the misery and sorrow
+into which I had been born.
+
+I told him so in some few words. “You mean me well, my lord,” I ended,
+“and I thank you. But...”
+
+“By God and the Saints!” he blazed, “I do not mean you well at all. I
+mean you anything but well. Have I not said that I could kill you
+with satisfaction? Whatever be the sins of Egidio Gambara, he is no
+hypocrite, and he lets his enemies see his face unmasked.”
+
+“But, then,” I cried, amazed, “why do you offer me my freedom?”
+
+“Because this cursed populace is in such a temper that if you are
+brought to trial I know not what may happen. As likely as not we shall
+have an insurrection, open revolt against the Pontifical authority, and
+red war in the streets. And this is not the time for it.
+
+“The Holy Father requires the submission of these people. We are upon
+the eve of Duke Pier Luigi's coming to occupy his new States, and it
+imports that he should be well received, that he should be given a
+loving welcome by his subjects. If, instead, they meet him with revolt
+and defiance, the reasons will be sought, and the blame of the affair
+will recoil upon me. Your cousin Cosimo will see to that. He is a very
+subtle gentleman, this cousin of yours, and he has a way of working to
+his own profit. So now you understand. I have no mind to be crushed in
+this business. Enough have I suffered already through you, enough am
+I suffering in resigning my governorship. So there is but one way
+out. There must be no trial to-morrow. It must be known that you have
+escaped. Thus they will be quieted, and the matter will blow over. So
+now, Ser Agostino, we understand each other. You must go.”
+
+“And whither am I to go?” I cried, remembering my mother and that
+Mondolfo--the only place of safety--was closed to me by her cruelly
+pious hands.
+
+“Whither?” he echoed. “What do I care? To Hell--anywhere, so that you
+get out of this.”
+
+“I'd sooner hang,” said I quite seriously.
+
+“You'ld hang and welcome, for all the love I bear you,” he answered, his
+impatience growing. “But if you hang blood will be shed, innocent lives
+will be lost, and I myself may come to suffer.”
+
+“For you, sir, I care nothing,” I answered him, taking his own tone, and
+returning him the same brutal frankness that he used with me. “That you
+deserve to suffer I do not doubt. But since other blood than yours might
+be shed as you say, since innocent lives might be lost... Give me the
+paper.”
+
+He was frowning upon me, and smiling viperishly at the same time.
+“I like your frankness better than your piety,” said he. “So now we
+understand each other, and know that neither is in the other's debt.
+Hereafter beware of Egidio Gambara. I give you this last loyal warning.
+See that you do not come into my way again.”
+
+I rose and looked at him--looked down from my greater height. I knew
+well the source of this last, parting show of hatred. Like Cosimo's
+it sprang from jealousy. And a growth more potential of evil does not
+exist.
+
+He bore my glance a moment, then turned and took up the lanthorn.
+“Come,” he said, and obediently I followed him up the winding stone
+staircase, and so to the very gates of the Palace.
+
+We met no one. What had become of the guards, I cannot think; but I am
+satisfied that Gambara himself had removed them. He opened the wicket
+for me, and as I stepped out he gave me the paper and whistled softly.
+Almost at once I heard a sound of muffled hooves under the colonnade,
+and presently loomed the figures of a man and a mule; both dim and
+ghostly in the pearly light of dawn--for that was the hour.
+
+Gambara followed me out, and pulled the wicket after him.
+
+“That beast is for you,” he said curtly. “It will the better enable you
+to get away.”
+
+As curtly I acknowledged the gift, and mounted whilst the groom held the
+stirrup for me.
+
+O! it was the oddest of transactions! My Lord Gambara with death in his
+heart very reluctantly giving me a life I did not want.
+
+I dug my heels into the mule's sides and started across the silent,
+empty square, then plunged into a narrow street where the gloom was
+almost as of midnight, and so pushed on.
+
+I came out into the open space before the Porta Fodesta, and so to the
+gate itself. From one of the windows of the gatehouse, a light shone
+yellow, and, presently, in answer to my call, out came an officer
+followed by two men, one of whom carried a lanthorn swinging from his
+pike. He held this light aloft, whilst the officer surveyed me.
+
+“What now?” he challenged. “None passes out to-night.”
+
+For answer I thrust the paper under his nose. “Orders from my Lord
+Gambara,” said I.
+
+But he never looked at it. “None passes out to-night,” he repeated
+imperturbably. “So run my orders.”
+
+“Orders from whom?” quoth I, surprised by his tone and manner.
+
+“From the Captain of Justice, if you must know. So you may get you back
+whence you came, and wait till daylight.”
+
+“Ah, but stay,” I said. “I do not think you can have heard me. I carry
+orders from my Lord the Governor. The Captain of Justice cannot overbear
+these.” And I shook the paper insistently.
+
+“My orders are that none is to pass--not even the Governor himself,” he
+answered firmly.
+
+It was very daring of Cosimo, and I saw his aim. He was, as Gambara
+had said, a very subtle gentleman. He, too, had set his finger upon the
+pulse of the populace, and perceived what might be expected of it.
+He was athirst for vengeance, as he had shown me, and determined that
+neither I nor Gambara should escape. First, I must be tried, condemned,
+and hanged, and then he trusted, no doubt, that Gambara would be torn
+in pieces; and it was quite possible that Messer Cosimo himself would
+secretly find means to fan the mob's indignation against the Legate into
+fierce activity. And it seemed that the game was in his hands, for this
+officer's resoluteness showed how implicitly my cousin was obeyed.
+
+Of that same resoluteness of the lieutenant's I was to have a yet
+more signal proof. For presently, whilst still I stood there vainly
+remonstrating, down the street behind me rode Gambara himself on a tall
+horse, followed by a mule-litter and an escort of half a score of armed
+grooms.
+
+He uttered an exclamation when he saw me still there, the gate shut and
+the officer in talk with me. He spurred quickly forward.
+
+“How is this?” he demanded haughtily and angrily. “This man rides upon
+the business of the State. Why this delay to open for him?”
+
+“My orders,” said the lieutenant, civilly but firmly, “are that none
+passes out to-night.”
+
+“Do you know me?” demanded Gambara.
+
+“Yes, my lord.”
+
+“And you dare talk to me of your orders? There are no orders here in
+Piacenza but my orders. Set me wide the wicket of that gate. I myself
+must pass.”
+
+“My lord, I dare not.”
+
+“You are insubordinate,” said the Legate, of a sudden very cold.
+
+He had no need to ask whose orders were these. At once he saw the
+trammel spread for him. But if Messer Cosimo was subtle, so, too, was
+Messer Gambara. By not so much as a word did he set his authority in
+question with the officer.
+
+“You are insubordinate,” was all he answered him, and then to the two
+men-at-arms behind the lieutenant--“Ho, there!” he called. “Bring out
+the guard. I am Egidio Gambara, your Governor.”
+
+So calm and firm and full of assurance was his tone, so unquestionable
+his right to command them, that the men sprang instantly to obey him.
+
+“What would you do, my lord?” quoth the officer, and he seemed daunted.
+
+“Buffoon,” said Gambara between his teeth. “You shall see.”
+
+Six men came hurrying from the gatehouse, and the Cardinal called to
+them.
+
+“Let the corporal stand forth,” he said.
+
+A man advanced a pace from the rank they had hastily formed and saluted.
+
+“Place me your officer under arrest,” said the Legate coldly, advancing
+no reason for the order. “Let him be locked in the gatehouse until my
+return; and do you, sir corporal, take command here meanwhile.”
+
+The startled fellow saluted again, and advanced upon his officer. The
+lieutenant looked up with sudden uneasiness in his eyes. He had gone too
+far. He had not reckoned upon being dealt with in this summary fashion.
+He had been bold so long as he conceived himself no more than Cosimo's
+mouthpiece, obeying orders for the issuing of which Cosimo must answer.
+Instead, it seemed, the Governor intended that he should answer for them
+himself. Whatever he now dared, he knew--as Gambara knew--that his men
+would never dare to disobey the Governor, who was the supreme authority
+there under the Pope.
+
+“My lord,” he exclaimed, “I had my orders from the Captain of Justice.”
+
+“And dare you to say that your orders included my messengers and my own
+self?” thundered the dainty prelate.
+
+“Explicitly, my lord,” answered the lieutenant.
+
+“It shall be dealt with on my return, and if what you say is proved
+true, the Captain of Justice shall suffer with yourself for this
+treason--for that is the offence. Take him away, and someone open me
+that gate.”
+
+There was an end to disobedience, and a moment or two later we stood
+outside the town, on the bank of the river, which gurgled and flowed
+away smoothly and mistily in the growing light, between the rows of
+stalwart poplars that stood like sentinels to guard it.
+
+“And now begone,” said Gambara curtly to me, and wheeling my mule I rode
+for the bridge of boats, crossed it, and set myself to breast the slopes
+beyond.
+
+Midway up I checked and looked back across the wide water. The light had
+grown quite strong by now, and in the east there was a faint pink flush
+to herald the approaching sun. Away beyond the river, moving southward,
+I could just make out the Legate's little cavalcade. And then, for the
+first time, a question leapt in my mind concerning the litter whose
+leathern curtains had remained so closely drawn. Whom did it contain?
+Could it be Giuliana? Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she
+had gone to Gambara for shelter?
+
+A little while ago I had sighed for death and exulted in the chance of
+expiation and of purging myself of the foulness of sin. And now, at
+the sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate
+jealousy touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my
+downfall. O, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles
+in such poor natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the
+desire for wrong!
+
+It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things;
+in vain that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent
+resolves; in vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the
+confession at Fra Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance
+and make amends by the purity of all my after-life. Vain was it all.
+
+I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking
+it, I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then
+away to the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.
+
+I must know. I must! It was no matter that conscience told me that here
+was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I
+was divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness. I
+must know. And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer
+Gambara, who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.
+
+I had no difficulty in following them. A question here, and a question
+there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
+necessary to keep me on their track. And ever, it seemed to me from the
+answers that I got, was I lessening the distance that separated us.
+
+I was weak for want of food, for the last time that I had eaten was
+yesterday at noon, at Mondolfo; and then but little. Yet all I had this
+day were some bunches of grapes that I stole in passing from a vineyard
+and ate as I trotted on along that eternal Via Aemilia.
+
+It was towards noon, at last, that a taverner at Castel Guelfo informed
+me that my party had passed through the town but half an hour ahead of
+me. At the news I urged my already weary beast along, for unless I made
+good haste now it might well happen that Parma should swallow up Gambara
+and his party ere I overtook them. And then, some ten minutes later,
+I caught a flutter of garments half a mile or so ahead of me, amid the
+elms. I quitted the road and entered the woodland. A little way I still
+rode; then, dismounting, I tethered my mule, and went forward cautiously
+on foot.
+
+I found them in a little sunken dell by a tiny rivulet. Lying on my
+belly in the long grass above, I looked down upon them with a black
+hatred of jealousy in my heart.
+
+They were reclining there, in that cool, fragrant spot in the shadow of
+a great beech-tree. A cloth had been spread upon the ground, and upon
+this were platters of roast meats, white bread and fruits, and a flagon
+of wine, a second flagon standing in the brook to cool.
+
+My Lord Gambara was talking and she was regarding him with eyes that
+were half veiled, a slow, insolent smile upon her matchless face.
+Presently at something that he said she laughed outright, a laugh so
+tuneful and light-hearted that I thought I must be dreaming all this. It
+was the gay, frank, innocent laughter of a child; and I never heard in
+all my life a sound that caused me so much horror. He leaned across to
+her, and stroked her velvet cheek with his delicate hand, whilst she
+suffered it in that lazy fashion that was so peculiarly her own.
+
+I stayed for no more. I wriggled back a little way to where a clump of
+hazel permitted me to rise without being seen. Thence I fled the spot.
+And as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame
+but one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and
+that word was “Trull!”
+
+Two nights ago had happened enough to stamp her soul for ever with
+sorrow and despair. Yet she could sit there, laughing and feasting and
+trulling it lightly with the Legate!
+
+The little that remained me of my illusions was shivered in that hour.
+There was, I swore, no good in all the world; for even where goodness
+sought to find a way, it grew distorted, as in my mother's case. And yet
+through all her pietism surely she had been right! There was no peace,
+no happiness save in the cloister. And at last the full bitterness of
+penitence and regret overtook me when I reflected that by my own act I
+had rendered myself for ever unworthy of the cloister's benign shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+
+I went blindly through the tangle of undergrowth, stumbling at every
+step and scarce noticing that I stumbled; and in this fashion I came
+presently back to my mule.
+
+I mounted and rode amain, not by the way that I had come, but westward;
+not by road, but by bridle-paths, through meadow-land and forest, up
+hill and down, like a man entranced, not knowing whither I went nor
+caring.
+
+Besides, whither was I to go? Like my father before me I was an outcast,
+a fugitive outlaw. But this troubled me not yet. My mind, my wounded,
+tortured mind was all upon the past. It was of Giuliana that I thought
+as I rode in the noontide warmth of that September day. And never can
+human brain have held a sorer conflict of reflection than was mine.
+
+No shadow now remained of the humour that had possessed me in the hour
+in which I had repudiated her after the murder of Fifanti. I had heard
+Fra Gervasio deliver judgment upon her, and I had doubted his justice,
+felt that he used her mercilessly. My own sight had now confirmed to me
+the truth of what he had said; but in doing so--in allowing me to
+see her in another man's possession--a very rage of jealousy had been
+stirred in me and a greater rage of longing.
+
+This longing followed upon my first bitter denunciation of her; and it
+followed soon. It is in our natures, as I then experienced, never more
+to desire a thing than when we see it lost to us. Bitterly now did I
+reproach myself for not having borne her off with me two nights ago when
+I had fled Fifanti's house, when she herself had urged that course upon
+me. I despised myself, out of my present want, for my repudiation of
+her--a hundred times more bitterly than I had despised myself when I
+imagined that I had done a vileness by that repudiation.
+
+Never until now, did it seem to me, had I known how deeply I loved her,
+how deeply the roots of our passion had burrowed down into my heart,
+and fastened there to be eradicated only with life itself. So thought I
+then; and thinking so I cried her name aloud, called to her through the
+scented pine-woods, thus voicing my longing and my despair.
+
+And swift on the heels of this would come another mood. There would come
+the consciousness of the sin of it all, the imperative need to cleanse
+myself of this, to efface her memory from my soul which could not hold
+it without sinning anew in fierce desire. I strove to do so with all my
+poor weak might. I denounced her to myself again for a soulless harlot;
+blamed her for all the ill that had befallen me; accounted her the
+very hand that had wielded me, a senseless instrument, to slay her
+importunate husband.
+
+And then I perceived that this was as pitiful a ruse of self-deception
+as that of the fox in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes
+above him. For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort
+of his will the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.
+
+Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
+ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came
+to the broad bed of a river.
+
+A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which
+was diminished by the long drought. Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
+stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
+brown city upon the rising ground.
+
+The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the
+ancient boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the
+historic spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to
+win back to France after the occupation of Naples. But the grotesque
+little king who had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my
+thoughts not at all just then. The Taro brought me memories not of
+battle, but of home. To reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up
+the valley towards that long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me,
+with the tall bulks of Mount Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps
+sparkling in the flood of sunshine that poured down upon them.
+Two hours, or perhaps three at most, along the track of that cool,
+glittering water, and the grey citadel of Mondolfo would come into view.
+
+It was this very reflection that brought me now to consider my
+condition; to ask myself whither I should turn. Money I had none--not so
+much as a single copper grosso. To sell I had nothing but the clothes I
+stood in--black, clerkly garments that I had got yesterday at Mondolfo.
+Not so much as a weapon had I that I might have bartered for a few
+coins. There was the mule; that should yield a ducat or two. But when
+this was spent, what then? To go a suppliant to that pious icicle my
+mother were worse than useless.
+
+Whither was I to turn--I, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina, one of the
+wealthiest and most puissant tyrants of this Val di Taro? It provoked me
+almost to laughter, of a fierce and bitter sort. Perhaps some peasant
+of the contado would take pity on his lord and give him shelter and
+nourishment in exchange for such labour as his lord might turn his stout
+limbs to upon that peasant's land, which was my own.
+
+I might perhaps essay it. Certainly it was the only thing that was left
+me. For against my mother and to support my rights I might not invoke
+a law which had placed me under a ban, a law that would deal me out its
+rigours did I reveal myself.
+
+Then I had thoughts of seeking sanctuary in some monastery, of offering
+myself as a lay-brother, to do menial work, and in this way perhaps I
+might find peace, and, in a lesser degree than was originally intended,
+the comforts of the religion to which I had been so grossly unfaithful.
+The thought grew and developed into a resolve. It brought me some
+comfort. It became a desire.
+
+I pushed on, following the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper,
+conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule was
+showing signs of weariness.
+
+Some three miles farther, having by then penetrated the green rampart
+of the foothills, I came upon the little village of Pojetta. It is a
+village composed of a single street throwing out as its branches a few
+narrow alleys, possessing a dingy church and a dingier tavern; this last
+had for only sign a bunch of withered rosemary that hung above its grimy
+doors.
+
+I drew rein there as utterly weary as my mule, hungry and thirsty
+and weak. I got down and invited the suspicious scrutiny of the
+lantern-jawed taverner, who, for all that my appearance was humble
+enough in such garments as I wore, must have accounted me none the less
+of too fine an air for such a house as his.
+
+“Care for my beast,” I bade him. “I shall stay here an hour or two.”
+
+He nodded surlily, and led the mule away, whilst I entered the tavern's
+single room. Coming into it from the sunlight I could scarcely see
+anything at first, so dark did the place seem. What light there was came
+through the open door; for the chamber's single window had long since
+been rendered opaque by a screen of accumulated dust and cobwebs. It
+was a roomy place, low-ceilinged with blackened rafters running parallel
+across its dirty yellow wash.
+
+The floor was strewn with foul rushes that must have lain unchanged for
+months, slippery with grease and littered with bones that had been flung
+there by the polite guests the place was wont to entertain. And it stank
+most vilely of rancid oil and burnt meats and other things indefinable
+in all but their acrid, nauseating, unclean pungency.
+
+A fire was burning low at the room's far end, and over this a girl
+was stooping, tending something in a stew-pot. She looked round at my
+advent, and revealed herself for a tall, black-haired, sloe-eyed wench,
+comely in a rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms
+which were bared to the elbow.
+
+Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron. She
+slouched forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled
+out a stool for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of
+the floor.
+
+Grouped about the upper end of this table sat four men of the peasant
+type, sun-tanned, bearded, and rudely garbed in loose jerkins and cross
+gartered leg cloths.
+
+A silence had fallen upon them as I entered, and they too were now
+inspecting me with a frank interest which in their simple way they made
+no attempt to conceal.
+
+I sank wearily to the stool, paying little heed to them, and in answer
+to the girl's invitation to command her, I begged for meat and bread
+and wine. Whilst she was preparing these, one of the men addressed me
+civilly; and I answered him as civilly but absently, for I had enough of
+other matters to engage my thoughts. Then another of them questioned me
+in a friendly tone as to whence I came. Instinctively I concealed the
+truth, answering vaguely that I was from Castel Guelfo--which was the
+neighbourhood in which I had overtaken my Lord Gambara and Giuliana.
+
+“And what do they say at Castel Guelfo of the things that are happening
+in Piacenza?” asked another.
+
+“In Piacenza?” quoth I. “Why, what is happening in Piacenza?”
+
+Eagerly, with an ardour to show themselves intimate with the affairs of
+towns, as is the way of rustics, they related to me what already I had
+gathered to be the vulgar version of Fifanti's death. Each spoke in
+turn, cutting in the moment another paused to breathe, and sometimes
+they spoke together, each anxious to have the extent of his information
+revealed and appreciated.
+
+And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of
+Fifanti's wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and
+had gone to visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying
+near by in wait, and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon
+after and attacked him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him. And
+then that wily, fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the
+young Lord of Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and
+he had caused the young man's arrest. But this the Piacentini would not
+endure. They had risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was
+fled to Rome or Parma, whilst the authorities to avoid a scandal had
+connived at the escape of Messer d'Anguissola, who was also gone, no man
+knew whither.
+
+The news had travelled speedily into that mountain fastness, it seemed.
+But it had been garbled at its source. The Piacentini conceived that
+they held some evidence of what they believed--the evidence of the lad
+whom Fifanti had left to spy and who had borne him the tale that the
+Cardinal was within. This evidence they accounted well-confirmed by the
+Legate's flight.
+
+Thus is history written. Not a doubt but that some industrious scribe in
+Piacenza with a grudge against Gambara, would set down what was the
+talk of the town; and hereafter, it is not to be doubted, the murder of
+Astorre Fifanti for the vilest of all motives will be added to the many
+crimes of Egidio Gambara, that posterity may execrate his name even
+beyond its already rich enough deserts.
+
+I heard them in silence and but little moved, yet with a question now
+and then to probe how far this silly story went in detail. And whilst
+they were still heaping abuse upon the Legate--of whom they spoke as
+Jews may speak of pork--came the lantern-jawed host with a dish of
+broiled goat, some bread, and a jug of wine. This he set before me, then
+joined them in their vituperation of Messer Gambara.
+
+I ate ravenously, and for all that I do not doubt the meat was tough
+and burnt, yet at the time those pieces of broiled goat upon that dirty
+table seemed the sweetest food that ever had been set before me.
+
+Finding that I was but indifferently communicative and had little news
+to give them, the peasants fell to gossiping among themselves, and
+they were presently joined by the girl, whose name, it seemed, was
+Giovannozza. She came to startle them with the rumour of a fresh miracle
+attributed to the hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+I looked up with more interest than I had hitherto shown in anything
+that had been said, and I inquired who might be this anchorite.
+
+“Sainted Virgin!” cried the girl, setting her hands upon her generous
+hips, and turning her bold sloe-eyes upon me in a stare of incredulity.
+“Whence are you, sir, that you seem to know nothing of the world? You
+had not heard the news of Piacenza, which must be known to everyone by
+now; and you have never heard of the anchorite of Monte Orsaro!” She
+appealed by a gesture to Heaven against the Stygian darkness of my mind.
+
+“He is a very holy man,” said one of the peasants.
+
+“And he dwells alone in a hut midway up the mountain,” added a second.
+
+“In a hut which he built for himself with his own hands,” a third
+explained.
+
+“And he lives on nuts and herbs and such scraps of food as are left
+him by the charitable,” put in the fourth, to show himself as full of
+knowledge as his fellows.
+
+But now it was Giovannozza who took up the story, firmly and resolutely;
+and being a woman she easily kept her tongue going and overbore the
+peasants so that they had no further share in the tale until it was
+entirely told. From her I learnt that the anchorite, one Fra Sebastiano,
+possessed a miraculous image of the blessed martyr St. Sebastian, whose
+wounds miraculously bled during Passion Week, and that there were no
+ills in the world that this blood would not cure, provided that those to
+whom it was applied were clean of mortal sin and imbued with the spirit
+of grace and faith.
+
+No pious wayfarer going over the Pass of Cisa into Tuscany but would
+turn aside to kiss the image and ask a blessing at the hands of the
+anchorite; and yearly in the season of the miraculous manifestation,
+great pilgrimages were made to the hermitage by folk from the Valleys of
+the Taro and Bagnanza, and even from beyond the Apennines. So that Fra
+Sebastiano gathered great store of alms, part of which he redistributed
+amongst the poor, part of which he was saving to build a bridge over
+the Bagnanza torrent, in crossing which so many poor folk had lost their
+lives.
+
+I listened intently to the tale of wonders that followed, and now the
+peasants joined in again, each with a story of some marvellous cure of
+which he had direct knowledge. And many and amazing were the details
+they gave me of the saint--for they spoke of him as a saint already--so
+that no doubt lingered in my mind of the holiness of this anchorite.
+
+Giovannozza related how a goatherd coming one night over the pass had
+heard from the neighbourhood of the hut the sounds of singing, and the
+music was the strangest and sweetest ever sounded on earth, so that it
+threw the poor fellow into a strange ecstasy, and it was beyond doubt
+that what he had heard was an angel choir. And then one of the peasants,
+the tallest and blackest of the four, swore with a great oath that one
+night when he himself had been in the hills he had seen the hermit's hut
+all aglow with heavenly light against the black mass of the mountain.
+
+All this left me presently very thoughtful, filled with wonder and
+amazement. Then their talk shifted again, and it was of the vintage they
+discoursed, the fine yield of grapes about Fontana Fredda, and the heavy
+crop of oil that there would be that year. And then with the hum of
+their voices gradually receding, it ceased altogether for me, and I was
+asleep with my head pillowed upon my arms.
+
+It would be an hour later when I awakened, a little stiff and cramped
+from the uncomfortable position in which I had rested. The peasants had
+departed and the surly-faced host was standing at my side.
+
+“You should be resuming your journey,” said he, seeing me awake. “It
+wants but a couple of hours to sunset, and if you are going over the
+pass it were well not to let the night overtake you.”
+
+“My journey?” said I aloud, and looked askance at him.
+
+Whither, in Heaven's name, was I journeying?
+
+Then I bethought me of my earlier resolve to seek shelter in some
+convent, and his mention of the pass caused me to think now that it
+would be wiser to cross the mountains into Tuscany. There I should be
+beyond the reach of the talons of the Farnese law, which might close
+upon me again at any time so long as I was upon Pontifical territory.
+
+I rose heavily, and suddenly bethought me of my utter lack of money.
+It dismayed me for a moment. Then I remembered the mule, and determined
+that I must go afoot.
+
+“I have a mule to sell,” said I, “the beast in your stables.”
+
+He scratched his ear, reflecting no doubt upon the drift of my
+announcement. “Yes?” he said dubiously. “And to what market are you
+taking it?”
+
+“I am offering it to you,” said I.
+
+“To me?” he cried, and instantly suspicion entered his crafty eye and
+darkened his brow. “Where got you the mule?” he asked, and snapped his
+lips together.
+
+The girl entering at that moment stood at gaze, listening.
+
+“Where did I get it?” I echoed. “What is that to you?”
+
+He smiled unpleasantly. “It is this to me: that if the bargelli were to
+come up here and discover a stolen mule in my stables, it would be an
+ill thing for me.”
+
+I flushed angrily. “Do you imply that I stole the mule?” said I, so
+fiercely that he changed his air.
+
+“Nay now, nay now,” he soothed me. “And, after all, it happens that I do
+not want a mule. I have one mule already, and I am a poor man, and...”
+
+“A fig for your whines,” said I. “Here is the case. I have no money--not
+a grosso. So the mule must pay for my dinner. Name your price, and let
+us have done.”
+
+“Ha!” he fumed at me. “I am to buy your stolen beast, am I? I am to be
+frightened by your violence into buying it? Be off, you rogue, or I'll
+raise the village and make short work of you. Be off, I say!”
+
+He backed away as he spoke, towards the fireplace, and from the corner
+took a stout oaken staff. He was a villain, a thieving rogue. That much
+was plain. And it was no less plain that I must submit, and leave my
+beast to him, or else perhaps suffer a worse alternative.
+
+Had those four honest peasants still been there, he would not have dared
+to have so borne himself. But as it was, without witnesses to say how
+the thing had truly happened, if he raised the village against me how
+should they believe a man who confessed that he had eaten a dinner for
+which he could not pay? It must go very ill with me.
+
+If I tried conclusions with him, I could break him in two
+notwithstanding his staff. But there would remain the girl to give the
+alarm, and when to dishonesty I should have added violence, my case
+would be that of any common bandit.
+
+“Very well,” I said. “You are a dirty, thieving rascal, and a vile one
+to take advantage of one in my position. I shall return for the mule
+another day. Meanwhile consider it in pledge for what I owe you. But see
+that you are ready for the reckoning when I present it.”
+
+With that, I swung on my heel, strode past the big-eyed girl, out of
+that foul kennel into God's sweet air, followed by the ordures of speech
+which that knave flung after me.
+
+I turned up the street, setting my face towards the mountains, and
+trudged amain.
+
+Soon I was out of the village and ascending the steep road towards the
+Pass of Cisa that leads over the Apennines to Pontremoli. This way had
+Hannibal come when he penetrated into Etruria some two thousand years
+ago. I quitted the road and took to bridle-paths under the shoulder
+of the mighty Mount Prinzera. Thus I pushed on and upward through
+grey-green of olive and deep enamelled green of fig-trees, and came at
+last into a narrow gorge between two great mountains, a place of ferns
+and moisture where all was shadow and the air felt chill.
+
+Above me the mountains towered to the blue heavens, their flanks of a
+green that was in places turned to golden, where Autumn's fingers had
+already touched those heights, in places gashed with grey and purple
+wounds, where the bare rock thrust through.
+
+I went on aimlessly, and came presently upon a little fir thicket,
+through which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters. I stood at
+last upon the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty
+gorge which it had cloven itself between the hills. Thence I looked
+down a long, wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun
+were slanting, and hazily in the distance I could see the russet city
+of Fornovo which I had earlier passed that day. This torrent was the
+Bagnanza, and it effectively barred all passage. So I went up, along its
+bed, scrambling over lichened rocks or sinking my feet into carpets of
+soft, yielding moss.
+
+At length, grown weary and uncertain of my way, I sank down to rest and
+think. And my thoughts were chiefly of that hermit somewhere above me
+in these hills, and of the blessedness of such a life, remote from the
+world that man had made so evil. And then, with thinking of the world,
+came thoughts of Giuliana. Two nights ago I had held her in my arms. Two
+nights ago! And already it seemed a century remote--as remote as all the
+rest of that life of which it seemed a part. For there had been a break
+in my existence with the murder of Fifanti, and in the past two days I
+had done more living and I had aged more than in all the eighteen years
+before.
+
+Thinking of Giuliana, I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of
+her hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous
+in their smile. My spirit conjured her to stand before me all white and
+seductive as I had known her, and my longings were again upon me like a
+searing torture.
+
+I fought them hard. I sought to shut that image out. But it abode to
+mock me. And then faintly from the valley, borne upon the breeze that
+came sighing through the fir-trees, rose the tinkle of an Angelus bell.
+
+I fell upon my knees and prayed to the Mother of Purity for strength,
+and thus I came once more to peace. That done I crept under the shelter
+of a projecting rock, wrapped my cloak tightly about me, and lay down
+upon the hard ground to rest, for I was very weary.
+
+Lying there I watched the colour fading from the sky. I saw the purple
+lights in the east turn to an orange that paled into faintest yellow,
+and this again into turquoise. The shadows crept up those heights. A
+star came out overhead, then another, then a score of stars to sparkle
+silvery in the blue-black heavens.
+
+I turned on my side, and closed my eyes, seeking to sleep; and then
+quite suddenly I heard a sound of unutterable sweetness--a melody so
+faint and subtle that it had none of the form and rhythm of earthly
+music. I sat up, my breath almost arrested, and listened more intently.
+I could still hear it, but very faint and distant. It was as a sound of
+silver bells, and yet it was not quite that. I remembered the stories I
+had heard that day in the tavern at Pojetta, and the talk of the mystic
+melodies by which travellers had been drawn to the anchorite's abode. I
+noted the direction of the sound, and I determined to be guided by it,
+and to cast myself at the feet of that holy man, to implore of him who
+could heal bodies the miracle of my soul's healing and my mind's purging
+from its torment.
+
+I pushed on, then, through the luminous night, keeping as much as
+possible to the open, for under trees lesser obstacles were not to be
+discerned. The melody grew louder as I advanced, ever following the
+Bagnanza towards its source; and the stream, too, being much less
+turbulent now, did not overbear that other sound.
+
+It was a melody on long humming notes, chiefly, it seemed to me, upon
+two notes with the occasional interjection of a third and fourth, and,
+at long and rare intervals, of a fifth. It was harmonious beyond all
+description, just as it was weird and unearthly; but now that I heard
+it more distinctly it had much more the sound of bells--very sweet and
+silvery.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, I was startled by a human cry--a piteous,
+wailing cry that told of helplessness and pain. I went forward more
+quickly in the direction whence it came, rounded a stout hazel coppice,
+and stood suddenly before a rude hut of pine logs built against the
+side of the rock. Through a small unglazed window came a feeble shaft of
+light.
+
+I halted there, breathless and a little afraid. This must be the
+dwelling of the anchorite. I stood upon holy ground.
+
+And then the cry was repeated. It proceeded from the hut. I advanced to
+the window, took courage and peered in. By the light of a little brass
+oil lamp with a single wick I could faintly make out the interior.
+
+The rock itself formed the far wall of it, and in this a niche was
+carved--a deep, capacious niche in the shadows of which I could faintly
+discern a figure some two feet in height, which I doubted not would
+be the miraculous image of St. Sebastian. In front of this was a rude
+wooden pulpit set very low, and upon it a great book with iron clasps
+and a yellow, grinning skull.
+
+All this I beheld at a single glance. There was no other furniture in
+that little place, neither chair nor table; and the brass lamp was set
+upon the floor, near a heaped-up bed of rushes and dried leaves upon
+which I beheld the anchorite himself. He was lying upon his back, and
+seemed a vigorous, able-bodied man of a good length.
+
+He wore a loose brown habit roughly tied about his middle by a piece of
+rope from which was suspended an enormous string of beads. His beard and
+hair were black, but his face was livid as a corpse's, and as I looked
+at him he emitted a fresh groan, and writhed as if in mortal suffering.
+
+“O my God! My God!” I heard him crying. “Am I to die alone? Mercy! I
+repent me!” And he writhed moaning, and rolled over on his side so that
+he faced me, and I saw that his livid countenance was glistening with
+sweat.
+
+I stepped aside and lifted the latch of the rude door.
+
+“Are you suffering, father?” I asked, almost fearfully. At the sound of
+my voice, he suddenly sat up, and there was a great fear in his eyes.
+Then he fell back again with a cry.
+
+“I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee!”
+
+I entered, and crossing to his side, I went down on my knees beside him.
+
+Without giving me time to speak, he clutched my arm with one of his
+clammy hands, and raised himself painfully upon his elbow, his eyes
+burning with the fever that was in him.
+
+“A priest!” he gasped. “Get me a priest! Oh, if you would be saved
+from the flames of everlasting Hell, get me a priest to shrive me. I am
+dying, and I would not go hence with the burden of all this sin upon my
+soul.”
+
+I could feel the heat of his hand through the sleeve of my coat. His
+condition was plain. A raging fever was burning out his life.
+
+“Be comforted,” I said. “I will go at once.” And I rose, whilst he
+poured forth his blessings upon me.
+
+At the door I checked to ask what was the nearest place.
+
+“Casi,” he said hoarsely. “To your right, you will see the path down the
+hill-side. You cannot miss it. In half an hour you should be there. And
+return at once, for I have not long. I feel it.”
+
+With a last word of reassurance and comfort I closed the door, and
+plunged away into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE RENUNCIATION
+
+
+I found the path the hermit spoke of, and followed its sinuous
+downhill course, now running when the ground was open, now moving more
+cautiously, yet always swiftly, when it led me through places darkened
+by trees.
+
+At the end of a half-hour I espied below me the twinkling lights of a
+village on the hill-side, and a few minutes later I was among the houses
+of Casi. To find the priest in his little cottage by the church was an
+easy matter; to tell him my errand and to induce him to come with me, to
+tend the holy man who lay dying alone in the mountain, was as easy. To
+return, however, was the most difficult part of the undertaking; for the
+upward path was steep, and the priest was old and needed such assistance
+as my own very weary limbs could scarcely render him. We had the
+advantage of a lanthorn which he insisted upon bringing, and we made as
+good progress as could be expected. But it was best part of two hours
+after my setting out before we stood once more upon the little platform
+where the hermit had his hut.
+
+We found the place in utter darkness. Through lack of oil his little
+lamp had burned itself out; and when we entered, the man on the bed of
+wattles lay singing a lewd tavern-song, which, coming from such holy
+lips, filled me with horror and amazement.
+
+But the old priest, with that vast and doleful experience of death-beds
+which belongs to men of his class, was quick to perceive the cause of
+this. The fever was flickering up before life's final extinction, and
+the poor moribund was delirious and knew not what he said.
+
+For an hour we watched beside him, waiting. The priest was confident
+that there would be a return of consciousness and a spell of lucidity
+before the end.
+
+Through that lugubrious hour I squatted there, watching the awful
+process of human dissolution for the first time.
+
+Save in the case of Fifanti I had never yet seen death; nor could it be
+said that I had really seen it then. With the pedant, death had been a
+sudden sharp severing of the thread of life, and I had been conscious
+that he was dead without any appreciation of death itself, blinded in
+part by my own exalted condition at the time.
+
+But in this death of Fra Sebastiano I was heated by no participation.
+I was an unwilling and detached spectator, brought there by force of
+circumstance; and my mind received from the spectacle an impression not
+easily to be effaced, an impression which may have been answerable in
+part for that which followed.
+
+Towards dawn at last the sick man's babblings--and they were mostly as
+profane and lewd as his occasional bursts of song--were quieted. The
+unseeing glitter of his eyes that had ever and anon been turned upon us
+was changed to a dull and heavy consciousness, and he struggled to rise,
+but his limbs refused their office.
+
+The priest leaned over him with a whispered word of comfort, then turned
+and signed to me to leave the hut. I rose, and went towards the door.
+But I had scarcely reached it when there was a hoarse cry behind me
+followed by a gasping sob from the priest. I started round to see the
+hermit lying on his back, his face rigid, his mouth open and idiotic,
+his eyes more leaden than they had been a moment since.
+
+“What is it?” I cried, despite myself.
+
+“He has gone, my son,” answered the old priest sorrowfully. “But he
+was contrite, and he had lived a saint.” And drawing from his breast a
+little silver box, he proceeded to perform the last rites upon the body
+from which the soul was already fled.
+
+I came slowly back and knelt beside him, and long we remained there
+in silent prayer for the repose of that blessed spirit. And whilst we
+prayed the wind rose outside, and a storm grew in the bosom of the night
+that had been so fair and tranquil. The lightning flashed and illumined
+the interior of that hut with a vividness as of broad daylight, throwing
+into livid relief the arrow-pierced St. Sebastian in the niche and the
+ghastly, grinning skull upon the hermit's pulpit.
+
+The thunder crashed and crackled, and the echoes of its artillery went
+booming and rolling round the hills, whilst the rain fell in a terrific
+lashing downpour. Some of it finding a weakness in the roof, trickled
+and dripped and formed a puddle in the middle of the hut.
+
+For upwards of an hour the storm raged, and all the while we remained
+upon our knees beside the dead anchorite. Then the thunder receded and
+gradually died away in the distance; the rain ceased; and the dawn crept
+pale as a moon-stone adown the valley.
+
+We went out to breathe the freshened air just as the first touches of
+the sun quickened to an opal splendour the pallor of that daybreak.
+All the earth was steaming, and the Bagnanza, suddenly swollen, went
+thundering down the gorge.
+
+At sunrise we dug a grave just below the platform with a spade which I
+found in the hut. There we buried the hermit, and over the spot I made a
+great cross with the largest stones that I could find. The priest would
+have given him burial in the hut itself; but I suggested that perhaps
+there might be some other who would be willing to take the hermit's
+place, and consecrate his life to carrying on the man's pious work
+of guarding that shrine and collecting alms for the poor and for the
+building of the bridge.
+
+My tone caused the priest to look at me with sharp, kindly eyes.
+
+“Have you such thoughts for yourself, perchance?” he asked me.
+
+“Unless you should adjudge me too unworthy for the office,” I answered
+humbly.
+
+“But you are very young, my son,” he said, and laid a kindly hand upon
+my shoulder. “Have you suffered, then, so sorely at the hands of the
+world that you should wish to renounce it and to take up this lonely
+life?”
+
+“I was intended for the priesthood, father,” I replied. “I aspired to
+holy orders. But through the sins of the flesh I have rendered myself
+unworthy. Here, perhaps, I can expiate and cleanse my heart of all the
+foulness it gathered in the world.”
+
+He left me an hour or so later, to make his way back to Casi, having
+heard enough of my past and having judged sufficiently of my attitude of
+mind to approve me in my determination to do penance and seek peace in
+that isolation. Before going he bade me seek him out at Casi at any
+time should any doubts assail me, or should I find that the burden I had
+taken up was too heavy for my shoulders.
+
+I watched him go down the winding, mountain path, watched the bent old
+figure in his long black gaberdine, until a turn in the path and a clump
+of chestnuts hid him from my sight.
+
+Then I first tasted the loneliness to which on that fair morning I had
+vowed myself. The desolation of it touched me and awoke self-pity in my
+heart, to extinguish utterly the faint flame of ecstasy that had warmed
+me when first I thought of taking the dead anchorite's place.
+
+I was not yet twenty, I was lord of great possessions, and of life I had
+tasted no more than one poisonous, reckless draught; yet I was done
+with the world--driven out of it by penitence. It was just; but it was
+bitter. And then I felt again that touch of ecstasy to reflect that it
+was the bitterness of the resolve that made it worthy, that through its
+very harshness was it that this path should lead to grace.
+
+Later on I busied myself with an inspection of the hut, and my first
+attentions were for the miraculous image. I looked upon it with awe, and
+I knelt to it in prayer for forgiveness for the unworthiness I brought
+to the service of the shrine.
+
+The image itself was very crude of workmanship and singularly ghastly.
+It reminded me poignantly of the Crucifix that had hung upon the
+whitewashed wall of my mother's private dining-room and had been so
+repellent to my young eyes.
+
+From two arrow wounds in the breast descended two brown streaks, relics
+of the last miraculous manifestation. The face of the young Roman
+centurion who had suffered martyrdom for his conversion to Christianity
+was smiling very sweetly and looking upwards, and in that part of his
+work the sculptor had been very happy. But the rest of the carving
+was gruesome and the anatomy was gross and bad, the figure being so
+disproportionately broad as to convey the impression of a stunted dwarf.
+
+The big book standing upon the pulpit of plain deal proved, as I had
+expected, to be a missal; and it became my custom to recite from it each
+morning thereafter the office for the day.
+
+In a rude cupboard I found a jar of baked earth that was half full of
+oil, and another larger jar containing some cakes of maize bread and
+a handful of chestnuts. There was also a brown bundle which resolved
+itself into a monkish habit within which was rolled a hair-shirt.
+
+I took pleasure in this discovery, and I set myself at once to strip off
+my secular garments and to don this coarse brown habit, which, by reason
+of my great height, descended but midway down my calves. For lack of
+sandals I went barefoot, and having made a bundle of the clothes I had
+removed I thrust them into the cupboard in the place of those which I
+had taken thence.
+
+Thus did I, who had been vowed to the anchorite order of St. Augustine,
+enter upon my life as an unordained anchorite. I dragged out the wattles
+upon which my blessed predecessor had breathed his last, and having
+swept the place clean with a bundle of hazel-switches which I cut for
+the purpose, I went to gather fresh boughs and rushes by the swollen
+torrent, and with these I made myself a bed.
+
+My existence became not only one of loneliness, but of grim privation.
+People rarely came my way, save for a few faithful women from Casi or
+Fiori who solicited my prayers in return for the oil and maize-cakes
+which they left me, and sometimes whole days would pass without the
+sight of a single human being. These maize-cakes formed my chief
+nourishment, together with a store of nuts from the hazel coppice that
+grew before my door and some chestnuts which I went further afield to
+gather in the woods. Occasionally, as a gift, there would be a jar of
+olives, which was the greatest delicacy that I savoured in those days.
+No flesh-food or fish did I ever taste, so that I grew very lean and
+often suffered hunger.
+
+My days were spent partly in prayer and partly in meditation, and I
+pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
+Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that
+great father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much
+sin as had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair. And as yet
+I had received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed
+at Piacenza. I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do
+penance first, but the penance had never been imposed. I was imposing it
+now. All my life should I impose it thus.
+
+Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought
+appalled me, for I must not die in sin.
+
+So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I
+would send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my
+hermitage, and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at
+his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+
+At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
+certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
+summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth. But anon this changed
+and I would catch the thoughts that should have been bent upon pious
+meditation glancing backward with regretful longings at that life out of
+which I had departed.
+
+I would start up in a pious rage and cast out such thoughts by more
+strenuous prayer and still more strenuous fasting. But as my body grew
+accustomed to the discomforts to which it was subjected, my mind assumed
+a rebellious freedom that clogged the work of purification upon which
+I strove to engage it. My stomach out of its very emptiness conjured
+up evil visions to torment me in the night, and with these I vainly
+wrestled until I remembered the measures which Fra Gervasio told me
+that he had taken in like case. I had then the happy inspiration to have
+recourse to the hair-shirt, which hitherto I had dreaded.
+
+It would be towards the end of October, as the days were growing colder,
+that I first put on that armour against the shafts of Satan. It galled
+me horribly and fretted my tender flesh at almost every movement; but so
+at least, at the expense of the body, I won back to some peace of mind,
+and the flesh, being quelled and subdued, no longer interposed its evil
+humours to the purity I desired for my meditations.
+
+For upwards of a month, then, the mild torture of the goat's-hair cilice
+did the office I required of it. But towards December, my skin having
+grown tough and callous from the perpetual irritation, and inured to
+the fretting of the sharp hair, my mind once more began to wander
+mutinously. To check it again I put off the cilice, and with it all
+other undergarments, retaining no more clothing than just the rough
+brown monkish habit. Thus I exposed myself to the rigours of the
+weather, for it had grown very cold in those heights where I dwelt, and
+the snows were creeping nearer adown the mountain-side.
+
+I had seen the green of the valley turn to gold and then to flaming
+brown. I had seen the fire perish out of those autumnal tints, and with
+the falling of the leaves, a slow, grey, bald decrepitude covering the
+world. And to this had now succeeded chill wintry gales that howled and
+whistled through the logs of my wretched hut, whilst the western wind
+coming down over the frozen zone above cut into me like a knife's edge.
+
+And famished as I was I felt this coldness the more, and daily I grew
+leaner until there was little left of my erstwhile lusty vigour, and I
+was reduced to a parcel of bones held together in a bag of skin, so that
+it almost seemed that I must rattle as I walked.
+
+I suffered, and yet I was glad to suffer, and took a joy in my pain,
+thanking God for the grace of permitting me to endure it, since the
+greater the discomforts of my body, the more numbed became the pain of
+my mind, the more removed from me were the lures of longing with which
+Satan still did battle for my soul. In pain itself I seemed to find
+the nepenthes that others seek from pain; in suffering was my Lethean
+draught that brought the only oblivion that I craved.
+
+I think that in those months my reason wandered a little under all this
+strain; and I think to-day that the long ecstasies into which I fell
+were largely the result of a feverishness that burned in me as a
+consequence of a chill that I had taken.
+
+I would spend long hours upon my knees in prayer and meditation. And
+remembering how others in such case as mine had known the great boon and
+blessing of heavenly visions, I prayed and hoped for some such sign
+of grace, confident in its power to sustain me thereafter against all
+possible temptation.
+
+And then, one night, as the year was touching its end, it seemed to me
+that my prayer was answered. I do not think that my vision was a dream;
+leastways, I do not think that I was asleep when it visited me. I was on
+my knees at the time, beside my bed of wattles, and it was very late
+at night. Suddenly the far end of my hut grew palely lucent, as if a
+phosphorescent vapour were rising from the ground; it waved and rolled
+as it ascended in billows of incandescence, and then out of the heart
+of it there gradually grew a figure all in white over which there was a
+cloak of deepest blue all flecked with golden stars, and in the folded
+hands a sheaf of silver lilies.
+
+I knew no fear. My pulses throbbed and my heart beat ponderously but
+rapturously as I watched the vision growing more and more distinct until
+I could make out the pale face of ineffable sweetness and the veiled
+eyes.
+
+It was the Blessed Madonna, as Messer Pordenone had painted her in the
+Church of Santa Chiara at Piacenza; the dress, the lilies, the sweet
+pale visage, all were known to me, even the billowing cloud upon which
+one little naked foot was resting.
+
+I cried out in longing and in rapture, and I held out my arms to that
+sweet vision. But even as I did so its aspect gradually changed. Under
+the upper part of the blue mantle, which formed a veil, was spread a
+mass of ruddy, gleaming hair; the snowy pallor of the face was warmed
+to the tint of ivory, and the lips deepened to scarlet and writhed in a
+voluptuous smile; the dark eyes glowed languidly; the lilies faded away,
+and the pale hands were held out to me.
+
+“Giuliana!” I cried, and my pure and piously joyous ecstasy was changed
+upon the instant to fierce, carnal longings.
+
+“Giuliana!” I held out my arms, and slowly she floated towards me, over
+the rough earthen floor of my cell.
+
+A frenzy of craving seized me. I was impatient to lock my arms once more
+about that fair sleek body. I sought to rise, to go to meet her slow
+approach, to lessen by a second this agony of waiting. But my limbs were
+powerless. I was as if cast in lead, whilst more and more slowly she
+approached me, so languorously mocking.
+
+And then revulsion took me, suddenly and without any cause or warning.
+I put my hands to my face to shut out a vision whose true significance I
+realized as in a flash.
+
+“Retro me, Sathanas!” I thundered. “Jesus! Maria!”
+
+I rose at last numbed and stiff. I looked again. The vision had
+departed. I was alone in my cell, and the rain was falling steadily
+outside. I groaned despairingly. Then I swayed, reeled sideways and lost
+all consciousness.
+
+When I awoke it was broad day, and the pale wintry sun shone silvery
+from a winter sky. I was very weak and very cold, and when I attempted
+to rise all things swam round me, and the floor of my cell appeared to
+heave like the deck of a ship upon a rolling sea.
+
+For days thereafter I was as a man entranced, alternately frozen with
+cold and burning with fever; and but that a shepherd who had turned
+aside to ask the hermit's blessing discovered me in that condition, and
+remained, out of his charity, for some three days to tend me, it is more
+than likely I should have died.
+
+He nourished me with the milk of goats, a luxury upon which my strength
+grew swiftly, and even after he had quitted my hut he still came daily
+for a week to visit me, and daily he insisted that I should consume the
+milk he brought me, overruling my protests that my need being overpast
+there was no longer the necessity to pamper me.
+
+Thereafter I knew a season of peace.
+
+It was, I then reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a
+masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned
+the contest. Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor
+glory in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse. I thanked
+Heaven for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of
+its protection for a vessel so weak.
+
+And now the hill-side and valley began to put on the raiment of a new
+year. February, like a benignant nymph, tripped down by meadow and
+stream, and touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And
+soon, where she had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones,
+scarlet, blue and purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of
+spring in their tender harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling
+nardosmia waved their incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted
+by the streams.
+
+Then as birch and beech and oak and chestnut put forth a garb of tender
+pallid green, March advanced and Easter came on apace.
+
+But the approach of Easter filled me with a staggering dread. It was in
+Passion Week that the miracle of the image that I guarded was wont to
+manifest itself. What if through my unworthiness it should fail? The
+fear appalled me, and I redoubled my prayers. There was need; for spring
+which touched the earth so benignly had not passed me by. And at moments
+certain longings for the world would stir in me again, and again would
+come those agonizing thoughts of Giuliana which I had conceived were for
+ever laid to rest, so that I sought refuge once more in the hair-shirt;
+and when this had once more lost its efficacy, I took long whip-like
+branches of tender eglantine to fashion a scourge with which I
+flagellated my naked body so that the thorns tore my flesh and set my
+rebellious blood to flow.
+
+One evening, at last, as I sat outside my hut, gazing over the rolling
+emerald uplands, I had my reward. I almost fainted when first I realized
+it in the extremity of my joy and thankfulness. Very faintly, just as I
+had heard it that night when first I came to the hermitage, I heard now
+the mystic, bell-like music that had guided my footsteps thither. Never
+since that night had the sound of it reached me, though often I had
+listened for it.
+
+It came now wafted down to me, it seemed, upon the evening breeze, a
+sound of angelic chimes infinitely ravishing to my senses, and stirring
+my heart to such an ecstasy of faith and happiness as I had never yet
+known since my coming thither.
+
+It was a sign--a sign of pardon, a sign of grace. It could be naught
+else. I fell upon my knees and rendered my deep and joyous thanks.
+
+And in all the week that followed that unearthly silver music was with
+me, infinitely soothing and solacing. I could wander afield, yet it
+never left me, unless I chanced to go so near the tumbling waters of
+the Bagnanza that their thunder drowned that other blessed sound. I took
+courage and confidence. Passion Week drew nigh; but it no longer had any
+terrors for me. I was adjudged worthy of the guardianship of the shrine.
+Yet I prayed, and made St. Sebastian the special object of my devotions,
+that he should not fail me.
+
+April came, as I learnt of the stray visitors who, of their charity,
+brought me the alms of bread, and the second day of it was the first of
+Holy Week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. INTRUDERS
+
+
+It was on Holy Thursday that the image usually began to bleed, and it
+would continue so to do until the dawn of Easter Sunday.
+
+Each day now, as the time drew nearer, I watched the image closely, and
+on the Wednesday I watched it with a dread anxiety I could not repress,
+for as yet there was no faintest sign. The brown streaks that marked
+the course of the last bleeding continued dry. All that night I prayed
+intently, in a torture of doubt, yet soothed a little by the gentle
+music that was never absent now.
+
+With the first glint of dawn I heard steps outside the hut; but I did
+not stir. By sunrise there was a murmur of voices like the muttering of
+a sea upon its shore. I rose and peered more closely at the saint. He
+was just wood, inanimate and insensible, and there was still no sign.
+Outside, I knew, a crowd of pilgrims was already gathered. They were
+waiting, poor souls. But what was their waiting compared with mine?
+
+Another hour I knelt there, still beseeching Heaven to take mercy
+upon me. But Heaven remained unresponsive and the wounds of the image
+continued dry.
+
+I rose, at last, in a sort of despair, and going to the door of the hut,
+I flung it wide.
+
+The platform was filled with a great crowd of peasantry, and an overflow
+poured down the sides of it and surged up the hill on the right and the
+left. At sight of me, so gaunt and worn, my eyes wild with despair and
+feverish from sleeplessness, a tangled growth of beard upon my hollow
+cheeks, they uttered as with one voice a great cry of awe. The multitude
+swayed and rippled, and then with a curious sound as that of a great
+wind, all went down upon their knees before me--all save the array of
+cripples huddled in the foreground, brought thither, poor wretches, in
+the hope of a miraculous healing.
+
+As I was looking round upon that assembly, my eyes were caught by a
+flash and glitter on the road above us leading to the Cisa Pass. A
+little troop of men-at-arms was descending that way. A score of them
+there would be, and from their lance-heads fluttered scarlet bannerols
+bearing a white device which at that distance I could not make out.
+
+The troop had halted, and one upon a great black horse, a man whose
+armour shone like the sun itself, was pointing down with his mail-clad
+hand. Then they began to move again, and the brightness of their armour,
+the fluttering pennons on their lances, stirred me strangely in that
+fleeting moment, ere I turned again to the faithful who knelt there
+waiting for my words. Dolefully, with hanging head and downcast eyes, I
+made the dread announcement.
+
+“My children, there is yet no miracle.”
+
+A deathly stillness followed the words. Then came an uproar, a clamour,
+a wailing. One bold mountaineer thrust forward to the foremost ranks,
+though without rising from his knees.
+
+“Father,” he cried, “how can that be? The saint has never failed to
+bleed by dawn on Holy Thursday, these five years past.”
+
+“Alas!” I groaned, “I do not know. I but tell you what is. All night
+have I held vigil. But all has been vain. I will go pray again, and do
+you, too, pray.”
+
+I dared not tell them of my growing suspicion and fear that the fault
+was in myself; that here was a sign of Heaven's displeasure at the
+impurity of the guardian of that holy place.
+
+“But the music!” cried one of the cripples raucously. “I hear the
+blessed music!”
+
+I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen. We all heard it
+pealing softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and a
+great cry went up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry that
+where one miracle was happening another must happen, that where the
+angelic choirs were singing all must be well.
+
+And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that I
+had seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage,
+having turned aside from the road. At the foot of the hillock upon which
+my hut was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
+
+I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to see
+what unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian.
+
+The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;
+then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight from
+it.
+
+All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon the
+bannerols was the head of a white horse. By that device I knew them.
+They were of the house of Cavalcanti--a house that had, as I had heard,
+been in alliance and great friendship with my father. But that their
+coming hither should have anything to do with me or with that friendship
+I was assured was impossible. Not a single soul could know of my
+whereabouts or the identity of the present hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+The pair advanced, leaving the troop below to await their return, and as
+they came I considered them, as did, too, the multitude.
+
+The man was of middle height, very broad and active, with long arms, to
+one of which the little lady clung for help up the steep path. He had a
+proud, stern aquiline face that was shaven, so that the straight lines
+of his strong mouth and powerful length of jaw looked as if chiselled
+out of stone. It was only at closer quarters that I observed how the
+general hardness of that countenance was softened by the kindliness of
+his deep brown eyes. In age I judged him to be forty, though in reality
+he was nearer fifty.
+
+The little lady at his side was the daintiest maid that I had ever
+seen. The skin, white as a water-lily, was very gently flushed upon her
+cheeks; the face was delicately oval; the little mouth, the tenderest
+in all the world; the forehead low and broad, and the slightly
+slanting eyes--when she raised the lashes that hung over them like long
+shadows--were of the deep blue of sapphires. Her dark brown hair was
+coifed in a jewelled net of thread of gold, and on her white neck a
+chain of emeralds sparkled sombrely. Her close-fitting robe and her
+mantle were of the hue of bronze, and the light shifted along the silken
+fabric as she moved, so that it gleamed like metal. About her waist
+there was a girdle of hammered gold, and pearls were sewn upon the back
+of her brown velvet gloves.
+
+One glance of her deep blue eyes she gave me as she approached; then she
+lowered them instantly, and so weak--so full of worldly vanities was I
+still that in that moment I took shame at the thought that she should
+see me thus, in this rough hermit's habit, my face a tangle of unshorn
+beard, my hair long and unkempt. And the shame of it dyed my gaunt
+cheeks. And then I turned pale again, for it seemed to me that out of
+nowhere a voice had asked me:
+
+“Do you still marvel that the image will not bleed?”
+
+So sharp and clear did those words arise from the lips of Conscience
+that it seemed to me as if they had been uttered aloud, and I looked
+almost in alarm to see if any other had overheard them.
+
+The cavalier was standing before me, and his brows were knit, a
+deep amazement in his eyes. Thus awhile in utter silence. Then quite
+suddenly, his voice a ringing challenge:
+
+“What is your name?” he said.
+
+“My name?” quoth I, astonished by such a question, and remarking now
+the intentness and surprise of his own glance. “It is Sebastian,” I
+answered, and truthfully, for that was the name of my adoption, the name
+I had taken when I entered upon my hermitage.
+
+“Sebastian of what and where?” quoth he.
+
+He stood before me, his back to the peasant crowd, ignoring them as
+completely as if they had no existence, supremely master of himself. And
+meanwhile, the little lady on his arm stole furtive upward glances at
+me.
+
+“Sebastian of nowhere,” I answered. “Sebastian the hermit, the guardian
+of this shrine. If you are come to...”
+
+“What was your name in the world?” he interrupted impatiently, and all
+the time his eyes were devouring my gaunt face.
+
+“The name of a sinner,” answered I. “I have stripped it off and cast it
+from me.”
+
+An expression of impatience rippled across the white face
+
+“But the name of your father?” he insisted.
+
+“I have none,” answered I. “I have no kin or ties of any sort. I am
+Sebastian the hermit.”
+
+His lips smacked testily. “Were you baptized Sebastian?” he inquired.
+
+“No,” I answered him. “I took the name when I became the guardian of
+this shrine.”
+
+“And when was that?”
+
+“In September of last year, when the holy man who was here before me
+died.”
+
+I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips.
+He leaned towards me. “Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?” he
+inquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.
+
+But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me by
+surprise. I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member
+of the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so
+intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced,
+moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the
+sight of that crowd of pilgrims.
+
+“Sir,” I said, “I know not your intentions; but in all humility let me
+say that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import. The world
+has done with me, and I with the world. So that unless you are come
+hither out of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with God
+and molest me no further. You come at a singularly inauspicious time,
+when I need all my strength to forget the world and my sinful past, that
+through me the will of Heaven may be done here.”
+
+I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of great
+compassion and sweetness whilst I spoke. I observed the pressure which
+she put on his arm. Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was the
+sad firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say. But he
+nodded shortly.
+
+“Well, well!” he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, the
+little lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which the
+crowd opened out for him.
+
+That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives of
+piety, they very plainly signified. They feared that the intrusion at
+such a time of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficulties
+against the performance of the expected miracle.
+
+Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted and
+questioned one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage. I did not
+hear the peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenly
+thrown up, and I caught his next question:
+
+“When did it last bleed?”
+
+Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice--“That would be
+before this young hermit came? And to-day it will not bleed, you say?”
+
+He flashed me a last keen glance of his eyes, which had grown narrow and
+seemed laden with mockery. The little lady whispered something to him,
+in answer to which he laughed contemptuously.
+
+“Fool's mummery,” he snapped, and drew her on, she going, it seemed to
+me, reluctantly.
+
+But the crowd had heard him and the insult offered to the shrine. A
+deep-throated bay rose up in menace, and some leapt to their feet as if
+they would attack him.
+
+He checked, and wheeled at the sound. “How now?” he cried, his voice a
+trumpet-call, his eyes flashing terribly upon them; and as dogs crouch
+to heel at the angry bidding of their master, the multitude grew silent
+and afraid under the eyes of that single steel-clad man.
+
+He laughed a deep-throated laugh, and strode down the hill with his
+little lady on his arm.
+
+But when he had mounted and was riding off, the crowd, recovering
+courage from his remoteness, hurled its curses after him and shrilly
+branded him, “Derider!” and “Blasphemer!”
+
+He rode contemptuously amain, however, looking back but once, and then
+to laugh at them.
+
+Soon he had dipped out of sight, and of his company nothing was visible
+but the fluttering red pennons with the device of the white horse-head.
+Gradually these also sank and vanished, and once more I was alone with
+the crowd of pilgrims.
+
+Enjoining prayer upon them again, I turned and re-entered the hut.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE VISION
+
+
+Pray as we might, night came and still the image gave no sign. The crowd
+melted away, with promises to return at dawn--promises that sounded
+almost like a menace in my ears.
+
+I was alone once more, alone with my thoughts and these made sport of
+me. It was not only upon the unresponsiveness of St. Sebastian that my
+mind now dwelt, nor yet upon the horrid dread that this unresponsiveness
+might be a sign of Heaven's displeasure, an indication that as a
+custodian of that shrine I was unacceptable through the mire of sin
+that still clung to me. Rather, my thoughts went straying down the
+mountain-side in the wake of that gallant company, that stern-faced man
+and that gentle-eyed little lady who had hung upon his arm. Before the
+eyes of my mind there flashed again the brilliance of their arms, in my
+ears rang the thunder of their chargers' hooves, whilst the image of the
+girl in her shimmering, bronze-hued robe remained insistently.
+
+Theirs the life that should have been mine! She such a companion as
+should have shared my life and borne me children of my own. And I would
+burn with shame again in memory, as I had burnt in actual fact, to think
+that she should have beheld me in so unkempt and bedraggled a condition.
+
+How must I compare in her eyes with the gay courtiers who would daily
+hover in her presence and hang upon her gentle speech? What thought of
+me could I hope should ever abide with her, as the image of her abode
+with me? Or, if she thought of me at all, she must think of me just as
+a poor hermit, a man who had donned the anchorite's sackcloth and turned
+his back upon a world that for him was empty.
+
+It is very easy for you worldly ones who read, to conjecture what had
+befallen me. I was enamoured. In a meeting of eyes had the thing come to
+me. And you will say that it is little marvel, considering the seclusion
+of all my life and particularly that of the past few months, that the
+first sweet maid I beheld should have wrought such havoc, and conquered
+my heart by the mere flicker of her lashes.
+
+Yet so much I cannot grant your shrewdness.
+
+That meeting was predestined. It was written that she should come and
+tear the foolish bandage from my eyes, allowing me to see for myself
+that, as Fra Gervasio had opined, my vocation was neither for hermitage
+nor cloister; that what called me was the world; and that in the world
+must I find salvation since I was needed for the world's work.
+
+And none but she could have done that. Of this I am persuaded, as you
+shall be when you have read on.
+
+The yearnings with which she filled my soul were very different from
+those inspired by the memory of Giuliana. That other sinful longing,
+she entirely effaced at last, thereby achieving something that had been
+impossible to prayers and fasting, to scourge and cilice. I longed for
+her almost beatifically, as those whose natures are truly saintly long
+for the presence of the blessed ones of Heaven. By the sight of her I
+was purified and sanctified, washed clean of all that murk of sinful
+desire in which I had lain despite myself; for my desire of her was the
+blessed, noble desire to serve, to guard, to cherish.
+
+Pure was she as the pale narcissus by the streams, and serving her what
+could I be but pure?
+
+And then, quite suddenly, upon the heels of such thoughts came the
+reaction. Horror and revulsion were upon me. This was but a fresh
+snare of Satan's baiting to lure me to destruction. Where the memory
+of Giuliana had failed to move me to aught but penance and increasing
+rigours, the foul fiend sought to engage me with a seeming purity to my
+ultimate destruction. Thus had Anthony, the Egyptian monk, been tempted;
+and under one guise or another it was ever the same Circean lure.
+
+I would make an end. I swore it in a mighty frenzy of repentance, in a
+very lust to do battle with Satan and with my own flesh and a phrenetic
+joy to engage in the awful combat.
+
+I stripped off my ragged habit, and standing naked I took up my scourge
+of eglantine and beat myself until the blood flowed freely. But that was
+not enough. All naked as I was, I went forth into the blue night, and
+ran to a pool of the Bagnanza, going of intent through thickets of
+bramble and briar-rose that gripped and tore my flesh and lacerated me
+so that at times I screamed aloud in pain, to laugh ecstatically the
+next moment and joyfully taunt Satan with his defeat.
+
+Thus I tore on, my very body ragged and bleeding from head to foot, and
+thus I came to the pool in the torrent's course. Into this I plunged,
+and stood with the icy waters almost to my neck, to purge the unholy
+fevers out of me. The snows above were melting at the time, and the pool
+was little more than liquid ice. The chill of it struck through me to
+the very marrow, and I felt my flesh creep and contract until it seemed
+like the rough hide of some fabled monster, and my wounds stung as if
+fire were being poured into them.
+
+Thus awhile; then all feeling passed, and a complete insensibility
+to the cold of the water or the fire of the wounds succeeded. All was
+numbed, and every nerve asleep. At last I had conquered. I laughed
+aloud, and in a great voice of triumph I shouted so that the shout went
+echoing round the hills in the stillness of the night:
+
+“Satan, thou art defeated!”
+
+And upon that I crawled up the mossy bank, the water gliding from my
+long limbs. I attempted to stand. But the earth rocked under my feet;
+the blueness of the night deepened into black, and consciousness was
+extinguished like a candle that is blown out.
+
+    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+
+She appeared above me in a great effulgence that emanated from herself
+as if she were grown luminous. Her robe was of cloth of silver and of
+a dazzling sheen, and it hung closely to her lissom, virginal form,
+defining every line and curve of it; and by the chaste beauty of her I
+was moved to purest ecstasy of awe and worship.
+
+The pale, oval face was infinitely sweet, the slanting eyes of heavenly
+blue were infinitely tender, the brown hair was plaited into two long
+tresses that hung forward upon either breast and were entwined with
+threads of gold and shimmering jewels. On the pale brow a brilliant
+glowed with pure white fires, and her hands were held out to me in
+welcome.
+
+Her lips parted to breathe my name.
+
+“Agostino d'Anguissola!” There were whole tomes of tender meaning in
+those syllables, so that hearing her utter them I seemed to learn all
+that was in her heart.
+
+And then her shining whiteness suggested to me the name that must be
+hers.
+
+“Bianca!” I cried, and in my turn held out my arms and made as if to
+advance towards her. But I was held back in icy, clinging bonds, whose
+relentlessness drew from me a groan of misery.
+
+“Agostino, I am waiting for you at Pagliano,” she said, and it did not
+occur to me to wonder where might be this Pagliano of which I could not
+remember ever to have heard. “Come to me soon.”
+
+“I may not come,” I answered miserably. “I am an anchorite, the guardian
+of a shrine; and my life that has been full of sin must be given
+henceforth to expiation. It is the will of Heaven.”
+
+She smiled all undismayed, smiled confidently and tenderly.
+
+“Presumptuous!” she gently chid me. “What know you of the will of
+Heaven? The will of Heaven is inscrutable. If you have sinned in
+the world, in the world must you atone by deeds that shall serve the
+world--God's world. In your hermitage you are become barren soil that
+will yield naught to yourself or any. Come then from the wilderness.
+Come soon! I am waiting!”
+
+And on that the splendid vision faded, and utter darkness once more
+encompassed me, a darkness through which still boomed repeatedly the
+fading echo of the words:
+
+“Come soon! I am waiting!”
+
+       .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+
+I lay upon my bed of wattles in the hut, and through the little unglazed
+windows the sun was pouring, but the dripping eaves told of rain that
+had lately ceased.
+
+Over me was bending a kindly faced old man in whom I recognized the good
+priest of Casi.
+
+I lay quite still for a long while, just gazing up at him. Soon my
+memory got to work of its own accord, and I bethought me of the pilgrims
+who must by now have come and who must be impatiently awaiting news.
+
+How came I to have slept so long? Vaguely I remembered my last night's
+penance, and then came a black gulf in my memory, a gap I could not
+bridge. But uppermost leapt the anxieties concerning the image of St.
+Sebastian.
+
+I struggled up to discover that I was very weak; so weak that I was glad
+to sink back again.
+
+“Does it bleed? Does it bleed yet?” I asked, and my voice was so small
+and feeble that the sound of it startled me.
+
+The old priest shook his head, and his eyes were very full of
+compassion.
+
+“Poor youth, poor youth!” he sighed.
+
+Without all was silent; there was no such rustle of a multitude as I
+listened for. And then I observed in my cell a little shepherd-lad who
+had been wont to come that way for my blessing upon occasions. He was
+half naked, as lithe as a snake and almost as brown. What did he there?
+And then someone else stirred--an elderly peasant-woman with a wrinkled
+kindly face and soft dark eyes, whom I did not know at all.
+
+Somehow, as my mind grew clearer, last night seemed ages remote. I
+looked at the priest again.
+
+“Father,” I murmured, “what has happened?”
+
+His answer amazed me. He started violently. Looked more closely, and
+suddenly cried out:
+
+“He knows me! He knows me! Deo gratias!” And he fell upon his knees
+
+Now here it seemed to me was a sort of madness. “Why should I not know
+you?” quoth I.
+
+The old woman peered at me. “Ay, blessed be Heaven! He is awake at
+last, and himself again.” She turned to the lad, who was staring at me,
+grinning. “Go tell them, Beppo! Haste!”
+
+“Tell them?” I cried. “The pilgrims? Ah, no, no--not unless the miracle
+has come to pass!”
+
+“There are no pilgrims here, my son,” said the priest.
+
+“Not?” I cried, and cold horror descended upon me. “But they should have
+come. This is Holy Friday, father.”
+
+“Nay, my son, Holy Friday was a fortnight ago.”
+
+I stared askance at him, in utter silence. Then I smiled half
+tolerantly. “But father, yesterday they were all here. Yesterday was...”
+
+“Your yesterday, my son, is sped these fifteen days,” he answered. “All
+that long while, since the night you wrestled with the Devil, you have
+lain exhausted by that awful combat, lying there betwixt life and death.
+All that time we have watched by you, Leocadia here and I and the lad
+Beppo.”
+
+Now here was news that left me speechless for some little while. My
+amazement and slow understanding were spurred on by a sight of my hands
+lying on the rude coverlet which had been flung over me. Emaciated they
+had been for some months now. But at present they were as white as
+snow and almost as translucent in their extraordinary frailty. I became
+increasingly conscious, too, of the great weakness of my body and the
+great lassitude that filled me.
+
+“Have I had the fever?” I asked him presently.
+
+“Ay, my son. And who would not? Blessed Virgin! who would not after what
+you underwent?”
+
+And now he poured into my astonished ears the amazing story that had
+overrun the country-side. It would seem that my cry in the night, my
+exultant cry to Satan that I had defeated him, had been overheard by
+a goatherd who guarded his flock in the hills. In the stillness he
+distinctly heard the words that I had uttered, and he came trembling
+down, drawn by a sort of pious curiosity to the spot whence it had
+seemed to him that the cry had proceeded.
+
+And there by a pool of the Bagnanza he had found me lying prone, my
+white body glistening like marble and almost as cold. Recognizing in me
+the anchorite of Monte Orsaro, he had taken me up in his strong arms
+and had carried me back to my hut. There he had set about reviving me by
+friction and by forcing between my teeth some of the grape-spirit that
+he carried in a gourd.
+
+Finding that I lived, but that he could not arouse me and that my icy
+coldness was succeeded by the fire of fever, he had covered me with my
+habit and his own cloak, and had gone down to Casi to fetch the priest
+and relate his story.
+
+This story was no less than that the hermit of Monte Orsaro had been
+fighting with the devil, who had dragged him naked from his hut and had
+sought to hurl him into the torrent; but that on the very edge of
+the river the anchorite had found strength, by the grace of God, to
+overthrow the tormentor and to render him powerless; and in proof of
+it there was my body all covered with Satan's claw-marks by which I had
+been torn most cruelly.
+
+The priest had come at once, bringing with him such restoratives as he
+needed, and it is a thousand mercies that he did not bring a leech, or
+else I might have been bled of the last drops remaining in my shrunken
+veins.
+
+And meanwhile the goatherd's story had gone abroad. By morning it was on
+the lips of all the country-side, so that explanations were not lacking
+to account for St. Sebastian's refusal to perform the usual miracle, and
+no miracle was expected--nor had the image yielded any.
+
+The priest was mistaken. A miracle there had been. But for what had
+chanced, the multitude must have come again confidently expecting the
+bleeding of the image which had never failed in five years, and had the
+image not bled it must have fared ill with the guardian of the
+shrine. In punishment for his sacrilegious ministry which must be held
+responsible for the absence of the miracle they so eagerly awaited, well
+might the crowd have torn me limb from limb.
+
+Next the old man went on to tell me how three days ago there had come to
+the hermitage a little troop of men-at-arms, led by a tall, bearded man
+whose device was a sable band upon an argent field, and accompanied by a
+friar of the order of St. Francis, a tall, gaunt fellow who had wept at
+sight of me.
+
+“That would be Fra Gervasio!” I exclaimed. “How came he to discover me?”
+
+“Yes--Fra Gervasio is his name,” replied the priest.
+
+“Where is he now?” I asked.
+
+“I think he is here.”
+
+In that moment I caught the sound of approaching steps. The door opened,
+and before me stood the tall figure of my best friend, his eyes all
+eagerness, his pale face flushed with joyous excitement.
+
+I smiled my welcome.
+
+“Agostino! Agostino!” he cried, and ran to kneel beside me and take my
+hand in his. “O, blessed be God!” he murmured.
+
+In the doorway stood now another man, who had followed him--one whose
+face I had seen somewhere yet could not at first remember where. He was
+very tall, so that he was forced to stoop to avoid the lintel of the low
+door--as tall as Gervasio or myself--and the tanned face was bearded by
+a heavy brown beard in which a few strands of grey were showing. Across
+his face there ran the hideous livid scar of a blow that must have
+crushed the bridge of his nose. It began just under the left eye, and
+crossed the face downwards until it was lost in the beard on the
+right side almost in line with the mouth. Yet, notwithstanding that
+disfigurement, he still possessed a certain beauty, and the deep-set,
+clear, grey-blue eyes were the eyes of a brave and kindly man.
+
+He wore a leather jerkin and great thigh-boots of grey leather, and from
+his girdle of hammered steel hung a dagger and the empty carriages of a
+sword. His cropped black head was bare, and in his hand he carried a cap
+of black velvet.
+
+We looked at each other awhile, and his eyes were sad and wistful, laden
+with pity, as I thought, for my condition. Then he moved forward with a
+creak of leather and jingle of spurs that made pleasant music.
+
+He set a hand upon the shoulder of the kneeling Gervasio.
+
+“He will live now, Gervasio?” he asked.
+
+“O, he will live,” answered the friar with an almost fierce satisfaction
+in his positive assurance. “He will live and in a week we can move him
+hence. Meanwhile he must be nourished.” He rose. “My good Leocadia, have
+you the broth? Come, then, let us build up this strength of his. There
+is haste, good soul; great haste!” She bustled at his bidding, and soon
+outside the door there was a crackling of twigs to announce the lighting
+of a fire. And then Gervasio made known to me the stranger.
+
+“This is Galeotto,” he said. “He was your father's friend, and would be
+yours.”
+
+“Sir,” said I, “I could not desire otherwise with any who was my
+father's friend. You are not, perchance, the Gran Galeotto?” I inquired,
+remembering the sable device on argent of which the priest had told me.
+
+“I am that same,” he answered, and I looked with interest upon one whose
+name had been ringing through Italy these last few years. And then, I
+suddenly realized why his face was familiar to me. This was the man who
+in a monkish robe had stared so insistently at me that day at Mondolfo
+five years ago.
+
+He was a sort of outlaw, a remnant of the days of chivalry and
+free-lances, whose sword was at the disposal of any purchaser. He rode
+at the head of a last fragment of the famous company that Giovanni de'
+Medici had raised and captained until his death. The sable band which
+they adopted in mourning for that warrior, earned for their founder the
+posthumous title of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.
+
+He was called Il Gran Galeotto (as another was called Il Gran Diavolo)
+in play upon the name he bore and the life he followed. He had been in
+bad odour with the Pope for his sometime association with my father, and
+he was not well-viewed in the Pontifical domains until, as I was soon
+to learn, he had patched up a sort of peace with Pier Luigi Farnese,
+who thought that the day might come when he should need the support of
+Galeotto's free-lances.
+
+“I was,” he said, “your father's closest friend. I took this at Perugia,
+where he fell,” he added, and pointed to his terrific scar. Then he
+laughed. “I wear it gladly in memory of him.”
+
+He turned to Gervasio, smiling. “I hope that Giovanni d'Anguissola's son
+will hold me in some affection for his father's sake, when he shall come
+to know me better.”
+
+“Sir,” I said, “from my heart I thank you for that pious, kindly
+wish; and I would that I might fully correspond to it. But Agostino
+d'Anguissola, who has been so near to death in the body, is, indeed,
+dead to the world already. Here you see but a poor hermit named
+Sebastian, who is the guardian of this shrine.”
+
+Gervasio rose suddenly. “This shrine...” he began in a fierce voice,
+his face inflamed as with sudden wrath. And there he stopped short. The
+priest was staring at him, and through the open door came Leocadia with
+a bowl of steaming broth. “We'll talk of this again,” he said, and there
+was a sort of thunder rumbling in the promise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+It was a week later before we returned to the subject.
+
+Meanwhile, the good priest of Casi and Leocadia had departed, bearing
+with them a princely reward from the silent, kindly eyed Galeotto.
+
+To tend me there remained only the boy Beppo; and after my long six
+months of lenten fare there followed now a period of feasting that began
+to trouble me as my strength returned. When, finally, on the seventh
+day, I was able to stand, and, by leaning on Gervasio's arm, to reach
+the door of the hut and to look out upon the sweet spring landscape and
+the green tents that Galeotto's followers had pitched for themselves in
+the dell below my platform, I vowed that I would make an end of broths
+and capons' breasts and trout and white bread and red wine and all such
+succulences.
+
+But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
+
+“There has been enough of this, Agostino,” said he. “You have gone
+near your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had been
+damned--deserving it for your folly if for naught else.”
+
+I looked at him with surprise and reproach. “How, Fra Gervasio?” I said.
+
+“How?” he answered. “Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales of
+fights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's claws
+upon your body? Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foul
+impostures of this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth of
+the country-side?”
+
+“Foul impostures?” I echoed, aghast. “Fra Gervasio, your words are
+sacrilege.”
+
+“Sacrilege?” he cried, and laughed bitterly. “Sacrilege? And what of
+that?” And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.
+Sebastian in its niche.
+
+“You think because it did not bleed...” I began.
+
+“It did not bleed,” he cut in, “because you are not a knave. That is the
+only reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue.
+He was no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy
+things, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black
+villain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when
+the end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money
+that he had extorted by his simonies.”
+
+“My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
+
+“Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?” he asked
+me sharply. “Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath
+that you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and
+had vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away to
+realms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said.”
+
+Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door
+to do the office of a stool.
+
+“But he gave alms!” I cried, my senses all bewildered.
+
+“Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image--” his scorn
+became tremendous--“is an impious fraud, Agostino.”
+
+Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man
+be so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that
+without fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
+
+I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
+
+“Your notions of God are heathen notions,” he said more quietly.
+“You confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His
+lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet--reflect! Consider the
+manner in which that brigand met his death.”
+
+“But... but...” I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short,
+and listened. “Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?”
+
+“Hear it? Hear what?”
+
+“The music--the angelic melodies! And you can say that this place is
+a foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud! And you a priest!
+Listen! It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief.”
+
+He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.
+
+“Angelic melodies!” he echoed with gentlest scorn. “By what snares does
+the Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose!
+That, boy--that is no more than the dripping of water into little wells
+of different depths, producing different notes. It is in there, in some
+cave in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth.”
+
+I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that my
+senses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion. “The proof of that?
+The proof!” I cried.
+
+“The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or while
+the river was swollen.”
+
+That answer shattered my last illusion. I looked back upon the time
+I had spent there, upon the despair that had beset me when the music
+ceased, upon the joy that had been mine when again I heard it,
+accepting it always as a sign of grace. And it was as he said. Not my
+unworthiness, but the rain, had ever silenced it. In memory I ran over
+the occasions, and so clearly did I perceive the truth of this, that I
+marvelled the coincidence should not earlier have discovered it to me.
+
+Moreover, now that my illusions concerning it were gone, the sound was
+clearly no more than he had said. I recognized its nature. It might have
+intrigued a sane man for a day or a night. But it could never longer
+have deceived any but one whose mind was become fevered with fanatic
+ecstasy.
+
+Then I looked again at the image in the niche, and the pendulum of my
+faith was suddenly checked in its counter-swing. About that image there
+could be no delusions. The whole country-side had witnessed the miracle
+of the bleeding, and it had wrought cures, wondrous cures, among the
+faithful. They could not all have been deceived. Besides, from the
+wounds in the breast there were still the brown signs of the last
+manifestation.
+
+But when I had given some utterance to these thoughts Gervasio for only
+answer stooped and picked up a wood-man's axe that stood against the
+wall. With this he went straight towards the image.
+
+“Fra Gervasio!” I cried, leaping to my feet, a premonition of what he
+was about turning me cold with horror. “Stay!” I almost screamed.
+
+But too late. My answer was a crashing blow. The next instant, as I sank
+back to my seat and covered my face, the two halves of the image fell at
+my feet, flung there by the friar.
+
+“Look!” he bade me in a roar.
+
+Fearfully I looked. I saw. And yet I could not believe.
+
+He came quickly back, and picked up the two halves. “The oracle of
+Delphi was not more impudently worked,” he said. “Observe this sponge,
+these plates of metal that close down upon it and exert the pressure
+necessary to send the liquid with which it is laden oozing forth.” As he
+spoke he tore out the fiendish mechanism. “And see now how ingeniously
+it was made to work--by pressure upon this arrow in the flank.”
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the door. I looked up, startled, to
+find Galeotto standing at my elbow. So engrossed had I been that I had
+never heard his soft approach over the turf.
+
+“Body of Bacchus!” said he. “Here is Gervasio become an image breaker to
+some purpose. What now of your miraculous saint, Agostino?”
+
+My answer was first a groan over my shattered illusion, and then a
+deep-throated curse at the folly that had made a mock of me.
+
+The friar set a hand upon my shoulder. “You see, Agostino, that your
+excursions into holy things do not promise well. Away with you, boy! Off
+with this hypocrite robe, and get you out into the world to do useful
+work for God and man. Had your heart truly called you to the priesthood,
+I had been the first to have guided your steps thither. But your mind
+upon such matters has been warped, and your views are all false; you
+confound mysticism with true religion, and mouldering in a hermitage
+with the service of God. How can you serve God here? Is not the world
+God's world that you must shun it as if the Devil had fashioned it? Go,
+I say--and I say it with the authority of the orders that I bear--go and
+serve man, and thus shall you best serve God. All else are but snares to
+such a nature as yours.”
+
+I looked at him helplessly, and from him to Galeotto who stood there,
+his black brows knit; watching me with intentness as if great issues
+hung upon my answer. And Gervasio's words touched in my mind some chord
+of memory. They were words that I had heard before--or something very
+like them, something whose import was the same.
+
+Then I groaned miserably and took my head in my hands. “Whither am I
+to go?” I cried. “What place is there in all the world for me? I am an
+outcast. My very home is held against me. Whither, then, shall I go?”
+
+“If that is all that troubles you,” said Galeotto, his tone unctuously
+humorous, “why we will ride to Pagliano.”
+
+I leapt at the word--literally leapt to my feet, and stared at him with
+blazing eyes.
+
+“Why, what ails him now?” quoth he.
+
+Well might he ask. That name--Pagliano--had stirred my memory so
+violently, that of a sudden as in a flash I had seen again the strange
+vision that visited my delirium; I had seen again the inviting eyes,
+the beckoning hands, and heard again the gentle voice saying, “Come to
+Pagliano! Come soon!”
+
+And now I knew, too, where I had heard words urging my return to the
+world that were of the same import as those which Gervasio used.
+
+What magic was there here? What wizardry was at play? I knew--for they
+had told me--that it had been that cavalier who had visited me, that man
+whose name was Ettore de' Cavalcanti, who had borne news to them of one
+who was strangely like what Giovanni d'Anguissola had been. But Pagliano
+had never yet been mentioned.
+
+“Where is Pagliano?” I asked.
+
+“In Lombardy--in the Milanes,” replied Galeotto.
+
+“It is the home of Cavalcanti.”
+
+“You are faint, Agostino,” cried Gervasio, with a sudden solicitude, and
+put an arm about my shoulders as I staggered.
+
+“No, no,” said I. “It is nothing. Tell me--” And I paused almost afraid
+to put the question, lest the answer should dash my sudden hope. For it
+seemed to me that in this place of false miracles, one true miracle at
+least had been wrought; if it should be proved so indeed, then would
+I accept it as a sign that my salvation lay indeed in the world. If
+not...
+
+“Tell me,” I began again; “this Cavalcanti has a daughter. She was with
+him upon that day when he came here. What is her name?”
+
+Galeotto looked at me out of narrowing eyes.
+
+“Why, what has that to do with anything?” quoth Gervasio.
+
+“More than you think. Answer me, then. What is her name?”
+
+“Her name is Bianca,” said Caleotto.
+
+Something within me seemed to give way, so that I fell to laughing
+foolishly as women laugh who are on the verge of tears. By an effort I
+regained my self-control.
+
+“It is very well,” I said. “I will ride with you to Pagliano.”
+
+Both stared at me in utter amazement at the suddenness of my consent
+following upon information that, in their minds, could have no possible
+bearing upon the matter at issue.
+
+“Is he quite sane, do you think?” cried Galeotto gruffly.
+
+“I think he has just become so,” said Fra Gervasio after a pause.
+
+“God give me patience, then,” grumbled the soldier, and left me puzzled
+by the words.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV. THE WORLD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. PAGLIANO
+
+
+The lilac was in bloom when we came to the grey walls of Pagliano in
+that May of '45, and its scent, arousing the memory of my return to the
+world, has ever since been to me symbolical of the world itself.
+
+Mine was no half-hearted, backward-glancing return. Having determined
+upon the step, I took it resolutely and completely at a single stride.
+Since Galeotto placed his resources at my disposal, to be repaid him
+later when I should have entered upon the enjoyment of my heritage of
+Mondolfo, I did not scruple to draw upon them for my needs.
+
+I accepted the fine linen and noble raiment that he offered, and I took
+pleasure in the brave appearance that I made in them, my face shorn
+now of its beard and my hair trimmed to a proper length. Similarly I
+accepted weapons, money, and a horse; and thus equipped, looking for the
+first time in my life like a patrician of my own lofty station, I rode
+forth from Monte Orsaro with Galeotto and Gervasio, attended by the
+former's troop of twenty lances.
+
+And from the moment of our setting out there came upon me a curious
+peace, a happiness and a great sense of expectancy. No longer was
+I oppressed by the fear of proving unworthy of the life which I had
+chosen--as had been the case when that life had been monastic.
+
+Galeotto was in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with
+pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of
+my father ere all was done.
+
+The first act of my new life was performed as we were passing through
+the village of Pojetta.
+
+I called a halt before the doors of that mean hostelry, over which hung
+what no doubt would still be the same withered bunch of rosemary that
+had been there in autumn when last I went that way.
+
+To the sloe-eyed, deep-bosomed girl who lounged against the door-post to
+see so fine a company ride by, I gave an order to fetch the taverner.
+He came with a slouch, a bent back, and humble, timid eyes--a very
+different attitude from that which he had last adopted towards me.
+
+“Where is my mule, you rogue?” quoth I.
+
+He looked at me askance. “Your mule, magnificent? said he.
+
+“You have forgotten me, I think--forgotten the lad in rusty black who
+rode this way last autumn and whom you robbed.”
+
+At the words be turned a sickly yellow, and fell to trembling and
+babbling protestations and excuses.
+
+“Have done,” I broke in. “You would not buy the mule then. You shall buy
+it now, and pay for it with interest.”
+
+“What is this, Agostino?” quoth Galeotto at my elbow. “An act of
+justice, sir,” I answered shortly, whereupon he questioned me no
+further, but looked on with a grim smile. Then to the taverner, “Your
+manners to-day are not quite the same as on the last occasion when we
+met. I spare you the gallows that you may live to profit by the lesson
+of your present near escape. And now, rogue, ten ducats for that mule.”
+ And I held out my hand.
+
+“Ten ducats!” he cried, and gathering courage perhaps since he was not
+to hang. “It is twice the value of the beast,” he protested.
+
+“I know,” I said. “It will be five ducats for the mule, and five for
+your life. I am merciful to rate the latter as cheaply as it deserves.
+Come, thief, the ten ducats without more ado, or I'll burn your nest of
+infamy and hang you above the ruins.”
+
+He cowered and shrivelled. Then he scuttled within doors to fetch the
+money, whilst Galeotto laughed deep in his throat.
+
+“You are well-advised,” said I, when the rogue returned and handed me
+the ducats. “I told you I should come back to present my reckoning. Be
+warned by this.”
+
+As we rode on Galeotto laughed again. “Body of Satan! There is a
+thoroughness about you, Agustino. As a hermit you did not spare
+yourself; and now as a tyrant you do not seem likely to spare others.”
+
+“It is the Anguissola way,” said Gervasio quietly.
+
+“You mistake,” said I. “I conceive myself in the world for some good
+purpose, and the act you have witnessed is a part of it. It was not a
+revengeful deed. Vengeance would have taken a harsher course. It was
+justice, and justice is righteous.”
+
+“Particularly a justice that puts ten ducats in your pocket,” laughed
+Galeotto.
+
+“There, again, you mistake me,” said I. “My aim is that thieves be
+mulcted to the end that the poor shall profit.” And I drew rein again.
+
+A little crowd had gathered about us, mostly of very ragged, half-clad
+people, for this village of Pojetta was a very poverty-stricken place.
+Into that little crowd I flung the ten ducats--with the consequence
+that on the instant it became a seething, howling, snarling, quarrelling
+mass. In the twinkling of an eye a couple of heads were cracked and
+blood was flowing, so that to quell the riot my charity had provoked, I
+was forced to spur my horse forward and bid them with threats disperse.
+
+“And I think now,” said Galeotto when it was done, “that you are just as
+reckless in the manner of doing charity. For the future, Agostino, you
+would do well to appoint an almoner.”
+
+I bit my lip in vexation; but soon I smiled again. Were such little
+things to fret me? Did we not ride to Pagliano and to Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti? At the very thought my pulses would quicken, and a sweetness
+of anticipation would invade my soul, to be clouded at moments by an
+indefinable dread.
+
+And thus we came to Pagliano in that month of May, when the lilac was in
+bloom, as I have said, and after Fra Gervasio had left us, to return to
+his convent at Piacenza.
+
+We were received in the courtyard of that mighty fortress by that
+sturdy, hawk-faced man who had recognized me in the hermitage on Monte
+Orsaro. But he was no longer in armour. He wore a surcoat of yellow
+velvet, and his eyes were very kindly and affectionate when they rested
+on Galeotto and from Galeotto passed on to take survey of me.
+
+“So this is our hermit!” quoth he, a note of some surprise in his crisp
+tones. “Somewhat changed!”
+
+“By a change that goes deeper than his pretty doublet,” said Galeotto.
+
+We dismounted, and grooms, in the Cavalcanti livery of scarlet with
+the horse-head in white upon their breasts, led away our horses. The
+seneschal acted as quarter-master to our lances, whilst Cavalcanti
+himself led us up the great stone staircase with its carved balustrade
+of marble, from which rose a file of pillars to support the groined
+ceiling. This last was frescoed in dull red with the white horse-head
+at intervals. On our right, on every third step, stood orange-trees in
+tubs, all flowering and shedding the most fragrant perfume.
+
+Thus we ascended to a spacious gallery, and through a succession of
+magnificent rooms we came to the noble apartments that had been made
+ready for us.
+
+A couple of pages came to tend me, bringing perfumed water and macerated
+herbs for my ablutions. These performed, they helped me into fresh
+garments that awaited me--black hose of finest silk and velvet trunks
+of the same sable hue, and for my body a fine close-fitting doublet of
+cloth of gold, caught at the waist by a jewelled girdle from which hung
+a dagger that was the merest toy.
+
+When I was ready they went before me, to lead the way to what they
+called the private dining-room, where supper awaited us. At the very
+mention of a private dining-room I had a vision of whitewashed walls and
+high-set windows and a floor strewn with rushes. Instead we came into
+the most beautiful chamber that I had ever seen. From floor to ceiling
+it was hung with arras of purple brocade alternating with cloth of gold;
+thus on three sides. On the fourth there was an opening for the embayed
+window which glowed like a gigantic sapphire in the deepening twilight.
+
+The floor was spread with a carpet of the ruddy purple of porphyry, very
+soft and silent to the feet. From the frescoed ceiling, where a joyous
+Phoebus drove a team of spirited white stallions, hung a chain that
+was carved in the semblance of interlocked Titans to support a great
+candelabrum, each branch of which was in the image of a Titan holding
+a stout candle of scented wax. It was all in gilded bronze and the
+workmanship--as I was presently to learn--of that great artist and rogue
+Benvenuto Cellini. From this candelabrum there fell upon the board a
+soft golden radiance that struck bright gleams from crystals and plate
+of gold and silver.
+
+By a buffet laden with meats stood the master of the household in black
+velvet, his chain of office richly carved, his badge a horse's head in
+silver, and he was flanked on either hand by a nimble-looking page.
+
+Of all this my first glance gathered but the most fleeting of
+impressions. For my eyes were instantly arrested by her who stood
+between Cavalcanti and Galeotto, awaiting my arrival. And, miracle of
+miracles, she was arrayed exactly as I had seen her in my vision.
+
+Her supple maiden body was sheathed in a gown of cloth of silver; her
+brown hair was dressed into two plaits interlaced with gold threads and
+set with tiny gems, and these plaits hung one on either breast. Upon the
+low, white brow a single jewel gleamed--a brilliant of the very whitest
+fire.
+
+Her long blue eyes were raised to look at me as I entered, and their
+glance grew startled when it encountered mine, the delicate colour
+faded gradually from her cheeks, and her eyes fell at last as she moved
+forward to bid me welcome to Pagliano in her own name.
+
+They must have perceived her emotion as they perceived mine. But they
+gave no sign. We got to the round table--myself upon Cavalcanti's left,
+Galeotto in the place of honour, and Bianca facing her father so that I
+was on her right.
+
+The seneschal bestirred himself, and the silken ministering pages
+fluttered round us. My Lord of Pagliano was one who kept a table as
+luxurious as all else in his splendid palace. First came a broth of veal
+in silver basins, then a stew of cocks' combs and capons' breasts, then
+the ham of a roasted boar, the flesh very lusciously saturated with the
+flavour of rosemary; and there was venison that was as soft as velvet,
+and other things that I no longer call to mind. And to drink there was a
+fragrant, well-sunned wine of Lombardy that had been cooled in snow.
+
+Galeotto ate enormously, Cavalcanti daintily, I but little, and Bianca
+nothing. Her presence had set up such emotions in me that I had no
+thought for food. But I drank deeply, and so came presently to a
+spurious ease which enabled me to take my share in the talk that
+was toward, though when all is said it was but a slight share, since
+Cavalcanti and Galeotto discoursed of matters wherein my knowledge was
+not sufficient to enable me to bear a conspicuous part.
+
+More than once I was on the point of addressing Bianca herself, but
+always courage failed me. I had ever in mind the memory she must have of
+me as she had last seen me, to increase the painful diffidence which her
+presence itself imposed upon me. Nor did I hear her voice more than once
+or twice when she demurely answered such questions as her father set
+her. And though once or twice I found her stealing a look at me, she
+would instantly avert her eyes when our glances crossed.
+
+Thus was our first meeting, and for a little time it was to be our last,
+because I lacked the courage to seek her out. She had her own apartments
+at Pagliano with her own maids of honour, like a princess; and the
+castle garden was entirely her domain into which even her father seldom
+intruded. He gave me the freedom of it; but it was a freedom of which I
+never took advantage in the week that we abode there. Several times
+was I on the point of doing so. But I was ever restrained by my
+unconquerable diffidence.
+
+And there was something else to impose restraint upon me. Hitherto the
+memory of Giuliana had come to haunt me in my hermitage, by arousing in
+me yearnings which I had to combat with fasting and prayer, with scourge
+and dice. Now the memory of her haunted me again; but in a vastly
+different way. It haunted me with the reminder of all the sin in which
+through her I had steeped myself; and just as the memory of that sin had
+made me in purer moments deem myself unworthy to be the guardian of
+the shrine on Monte Orsaro, so now did it cause me to deem myself
+all unworthy to enter the garden that enshrined Madonna Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti.
+
+Before the purity that shone from her I recoiled in an awe whose nature
+was as the feelings of a religion. I felt that to seek her presence
+would be almost to defile her. And so I abstained, my mind very full
+of her the while, for all that the time was beguiled for me in daily
+exercise with horse and arms under the guidance of Galeotto.
+
+I was not so tutored merely for the sake of repairing a grave omission
+in my education. It had a definite scope, as Galeotto frankly told me,
+informing me that the time approached in which to avenge my father and
+strike a blow for my own rights.
+
+And then at the end of a week a man rode into the courtyard of Pagliano
+one day, and flung down from his horse shouting to be led to Messer
+Galeotto. There was something about this courier's mien and person that
+awoke a poignant memory. I was walking in the gallery when the clatter
+of his advent drew my attention, and his voice sent a strange thrill
+through me.
+
+One glance I gave to make quite sure, and then I leapt down the broad
+steps four at a time, and a moment later, to the amazement of all
+present, I had caught the dusty rider in my arms, and I was kissing the
+wrinkled, scarred, and leathery old cheeks.
+
+“Falcone!” I cried. “Falcone, do you not know me?”
+
+He was startled by the violence of my passionate onslaught. Indeed, he
+was almost borne to the ground by it, for his old legs were stiff now
+from riding.
+
+And then--how he stared! What oaths he swore!
+
+“Madonnino!” he babbled. “Madonnino!” And he shook himself free of my
+embrace, and stood back that he might view me. “Body of Satan! But you
+are finely grown, and how like to what your father was when he was no
+older than are you! And they have not made a shaveling of you, after
+all. Now blessed be God for that!” Then he stopped short, and his eyes
+went past me, and he seemed to hesitate.
+
+I turned, and there, leaning on the balustrade of the staircase, looking
+on with smiling eyes stood Galeotto with Messer Cavalcanti at his elbow.
+
+I heard Galeotto's words to the Lord of Pagliano. “His heart is
+sound--which is a miracle. That woman, it seems, could not quite
+dehumanize him.” And he came down heavily, to ask Falcone what news he
+bore.
+
+The old equerry drew a letter from under his leathern jacket.
+
+“From Ferrante?” quoth the Lord of Pagliano eagerly, peering over
+Galeotto's shoulder.
+
+“Ay,” said Galeotto, and he broke the seal. He stood to read, with
+knitted brows. “It is well,” he said, at last, and passed the sheet to
+Cavalcanti. “Farnese is in Piacenza already, and the Pope will sway the
+College to give his bastard the ducal crown. It is time we stirred.”
+
+He turned to Falcone, whilst Cavalcanti read the letter. “Take food and
+rest, good Gino. For to-morrow you ride again with me. And so shall you,
+Agostino.”
+
+“I ride again?” I echoed, my heart sinking and some of my dismay showing
+upon my face. “Whither?”
+
+“To right the wrongs of Mondolfo,” he answered shortly, and turned away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+
+We rode again upon the morrow as he had said, and with us went Falcone
+and the same goodly company of twenty lances that had escorted me from
+Monte Orsaro. But I took little thought for them or pride in such an
+escort now. My heart was leaden. I had not seen Bianca again ere I
+departed, and Heaven knew when we should return to Pagliano. Thus at
+least was I answered by Galeotto when I made bold to ask the question.
+
+Two days we rode, going by easy stages, and came at last upon that
+wondrously fair and imposing city of Milan, in the very heart of the
+vast plain of Lombardy with the distant Alps for background and northern
+rampart.
+
+Our destination was the castle; and in a splendid ante-chamber, packed
+with rustling, silken courtiers and clanking captains in steel, a
+sprinkling of prelates and handsome, insolent-eyed women, more than one
+of whom reminded me of Giuliana, and every one of whom I disparaged by
+comparing her with Bianca, Galeotto and I stood waiting.
+
+To many there he seemed known, and several came to greet him and some to
+whisper in his ear. At last a pert boy in a satin suit that was striped
+in the Imperial livery of black and yellow, pushed his way through the
+throng.
+
+“Messer Galeotto,” his shrill voice announced, “his excellency awaits
+you.”
+
+Galeotto took my arm, and drew me forward with him. Thus we went through
+a lane that opened out before us in that courtly throng, and came to a
+curtained door. An usher raised the curtain for us at a sign from the
+page, who, opening, announced us to the personage within.
+
+We stood in a small closet, whose tall, slender windows overlooked
+the courtyard, and from the table, on which there was a wealth of
+parchments, rose a very courtly gentleman to receive us out of a
+gilded chair, the arms of which were curiously carved into the shape of
+serpents' heads.
+
+He was a well-nourished, florid man of middle height, with a resolute
+mouth, high cheek-bones, and crafty, prominent eyes that reminded
+me vaguely of the eyes of the taverner of Pojetta. He was splendidly
+dressed in a long gown of crimson damask edged with lynx fur, and
+the fingers of his fat hands and one of his thumbs were burdened with
+jewels.
+
+This was Ferrante Gonzaga, Prince of Molfetta, Duke of Ariano, the
+Emperor's Lieutenant and Governor of the State of Milan.
+
+The smile with which he had been ready to greet Galeotto froze slightly
+at sight of me. But before he could voice the question obviously in his
+mind my companion had presented me.
+
+“Here, my lord, is one upon whom I trust that we may count when the time
+comes. This is Agostino d'Anguissola, of Mondolfo and Carmina.”
+
+Surprise overspread Gonzaga's face. He seemed about to speak, and
+checked, and his eyes were very searchingly bent upon Galeotto's face,
+which remained inscrutable as stone. Then the Governor looked at me, and
+from me back again at Galeotto. At last he smiled, whilst I bowed before
+him, but very vaguely conscious of what might impend.
+
+“The time,” he said, “seems to be none too distant. The Duke of
+Castro--this Pier Luigi Farnese--is so confident of ultimate success
+that already he has taken up his residence in Piacenza, and already, I
+am informed, is being spoken of as Duke of Parma and Piacenza.”
+
+“He has cause,” said Galeotto. “Who is to withstand his election since
+the Emperor, like Pilate, has washed his hands of the affair?”
+
+A smile overspread Gonzaga's crafty face. “Do not assume too much
+concerning the Emperor's wishes in the matter. His answer to the Pope
+was that if Parma and Piacenza are Imperial fiefs--integral parts of the
+State of Milan--it would ill become the Emperor to alienate them from
+an empire which he holds merely in trust; whereas if they can be shown
+rightly to belong to the Holy See, why then the matter concerns him not,
+and the Holy See may settle it.”
+
+Galeotto shrugged and his face grew dark. “It amounts to an assent,” he
+said.
+
+“Not so,” purred Gonzaga, seating himself once more. “It amounts to
+nothing. It is a Sibylline answer which nowise prejudices what he may do
+in future. We still hope,” he added, “that the Sacred College may refuse
+the investiture. Pier Luigi Farnese is not in good odour in the Curia.”
+
+“The Sacred College cannot withstand the Pope's desires. He has bribed
+it with the undertaking to restore Nepi and Camerino to the States of
+the Church in exchange for Parma and Piacenza, which are to form a State
+for his son. How long, my lord, do you think the College will resist
+him?”
+
+“The Spanish Cardinals all have the Emperor's desires at heart.”
+
+“The Spanish Cardinals may oppose the measure until they choke
+themselves with their vehemence,” was the ready answer. “There are
+enough of the Pope's creatures to carry the election, and if there were
+not it would be his to create more until there should be sufficient for
+his purpose. It is an old subterfuge.”
+
+“Well, then,” said Gonzaga, smiling, “since you are so assured, it
+is for you and the nobles of Piacenza to be up and doing. The Emperor
+depends upon you; and you may depend upon him.”
+
+Galeotto looked at the Governor out of his scarred face, and his eyes
+were very grave.
+
+“I had hoped otherwise,” he said. “That is why I have been slow to move.
+That is why I have waited, why I have even committed the treachery
+of permitting Pier Luigi to suppose me ready at need to engage in his
+service.”
+
+“Ah, there you play a dangerous game,” said Gonzaga frankly.
+
+“I'll play a more dangerous still ere I have done,” he answered stoutly.
+“Neither Pope nor Devil shall dismay me. I have great wrongs to right,
+as none knows better than your excellency, and if my life should go in
+the course of it, why”--he shrugged and sneered--“it is all that is left
+me; and life is a little thing when a man has lost all else.”
+
+“I know, I know,” said the sly Governor, wagging his big head, “else I
+had not warned you. For we need you, Messer Galeotto.”
+
+“Ay, you need me; you'll make a tool of me--you and your Emperor. You'll
+use me as a cat's-paw to pull down this inconvenient duke.”
+
+Gonzaga rose, frowning. “You go a little far, Messer Galeotto,” he said.
+
+“I go no farther than you urge me,” answered the other.
+
+“But patience, patience!” the Lieutenant soothed him, growing sleek
+again in tone and manner. “Consider now the position. What the Emperor
+has answered the Pope is no more than the bare and precise truth. It is
+not clear whether the States of Parma and Piacenza belong to the
+Empire or the Holy See. But let the people rise and show themselves
+ill-governed, let them revolt against Farnese once he has been created
+their duke and when thus the State shall have been alienated from the
+Holy See, and then you may count upon the Emperor to step in as your
+liberator and to buttress up your revolt.”
+
+“Do you promise us so much?” asked Galeotto.
+
+“Explicitly,” was the ready answer, “upon my most sacred honour. Send
+me word that you are in arms, that the first blow has been struck, and
+I shall be with you with all the force that I can raise in the Emperor's
+name.”
+
+“Your excellency has warrant for this?” demanded Galeotto.
+
+“Should I promise it else? About it, sir. You may work with confidence.”
+
+“With confidence, yes,” replied Galeotto gloomily, “but with no great
+hope. The Pontifical government has ground the spirit out of half
+the nobles of the Val di Taro. They have suffered so much and so
+repeatedly--in property, in liberty, in life itself--that they are grown
+rabbit-hearted, and would sooner cling to the little liberty that is
+still theirs than strike a blow to gain what belongs to them by every
+right. Oh, I know them of old! What man can do, I shall do; but...” He
+shrugged, and shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+“Can you count on none?” asked Gonzaga, very serious, stroking his
+smooth, fat chin.
+
+“I can count upon one,” answered Galeotto. “The Lord of Pagliano; he is
+ghibelline to the very marrow, and he belongs to me. At my bidding there
+is nothing he will not do. There is an old debt between us, and he is
+a noble soul who will not leave his debts unpaid. Upon him I can count;
+and he is rich and powerful. But then, he is not really a Piacentino
+himself. He holds his fief direct from the Emperor. Pagliano is part of
+the State of Milan, and Cavalcanti is no subject of Farnese. His case,
+therefore, is exceptional and he has less than the usual cause for
+timidity. But the others...” Again he shrugged. “What man can do to stir
+them, that will I do. You shall hear from me soon again, my lord.”
+
+Gonzaga looked at me. “Did you not say that here was another?”
+
+Galeotto smiled sadly. “Ay--just one arm and one sword. That is all.
+Unless this emprise succeeds he is never like to rule in Mondolfo. He
+may be counted upon; but he brings no lances with him.”
+
+“I see,” said Gonzaga, his lip between thumb and forefinger. “But his
+name...”
+
+“That and his wrongs shall be used, depend upon it, my lord--the wrongs
+which are his by inheritance.”
+
+I said no word. A certain resentment filled me to hear myself so
+disposed of without being consulted; and yet it was tempered by a
+certain trust in Galeotto, a faith that he would lead me into nothing
+unworthy.
+
+Gonzaga conducted us to the door of the closet. “I shall look to hear
+from you, Ser Galeotto,” he said. “And if at first the nobles of the
+Val di Taro are not to be moved, perhaps after they have had a taste
+of Messer Pier Luigi's ways they will gather courage out of despair.
+I think we may be hopeful if patient. Meanwhile, my master the Emperor
+shall be informed.”
+
+Another moment and we were out of that florid, crafty, well-nourished
+presence. The curtains had dropped behind us, and we were thrusting our
+way through the press in the ante-chamber, Galeotto muttering to himself
+things which as we gained the open air I gathered to be curses directed
+against the Emperor and his Milanese Lieutenant.
+
+In the inn of the sign of the Sun, by the gigantic Duomo of Visconti's
+building, he opened the gates to his anger and let it freely forth.
+
+“It is a world of cravens,” he said, “a world of slothful, self-seeking,
+supine cowards, Agostino. In the Emperor, at least, I conceived that we
+should have found a man who would not be averse to acting boldly where
+his interests must be served. More I had not expected of him; but that,
+at least. And even in that he fails me. Oh, this Charles V!” he cried.
+“This prince upon whose dominions the sun never sets! Fortune has
+bestowed upon him all the favours in her gift, yet for himself he can do
+nothing.
+
+“He is crafty, cruel, irresolute, and mistrustful of all. He is without
+greatness of any sort, and he is all but Emperor of the World! Others
+must do his work for him; others must compass the conquests which he is
+to enjoy.
+
+“Ah, well!” he ended, with a sneer, “perhaps as the world views these
+things there is a certain greatness in that--the greatness of the fox.”
+
+Naturally there was much in this upon which I needed explanation, and I
+made bold to intrude upon his anger to crave it. And it was then that I
+learnt the true position of affairs.
+
+Between France and the Empire, the State of Milan had been in contention
+until quite lately, when Henri II had abandoned it to Charles V. And
+in the State of Milan were the States of Parma and Piacenza, which Pope
+Julius II had wrested from it and incorporated in the domain of the
+Church. The act, however, was unlawful, and although these States
+had ever since been under Pontifical rule, it was to Milan that they
+belonged, though Milan never yet had had the power to enforce her
+rights. She had that power at last, now that the Emperor's rule there
+was a thing determined, and it was in this moment that papal nepotism
+was to make a further alienation of them by constituting them into
+a duchy for the Farnese bastard, Pier Luigi, who was already Duke of
+Castro.
+
+Under papal rule the nobles--more particularly the ghibellines--and
+the lesser tyrants of the Val di Taro had suffered rudely, plundered by
+Pontifical brigandage, enduring confiscations and extortions until they
+were reduced to a miserable condition. It was against the beginnings of
+this that my father had raised his standard, to be crushed thorough the
+supineness of his peers, who would not support him to save themselves
+from being consumed in the capacious maw of Rome.
+
+But what they had suffered hitherto would be as nothing to what they
+must suffer if the Pope now had his way and if Pier Luigi Farnese were
+to become their duke--an independent prince. He would break the nobles
+utterly, to remain undisputed master of the territory. That was a
+conclusion foregone. And yet our princelings saw the evil approaching
+them, and cowered irresolute to await and suffer it.
+
+They had depended, perhaps, upon the Emperor, who, it was known, did
+not favour the investiture, nor would confirm it. It was remembered that
+Ottavio Farnese--Pier Luigi's son--was married to Margaret of Austria,
+the Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was to be
+in Parma and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be that
+of his own son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the Empire.
+Further was it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and Emperor
+to gain the investiture in his own father's stead.
+
+“The unnatural son!” I exclaimed upon learning that.
+
+Galeotto looked at me, and smiled darkly, stroking his great beard.
+
+“Say, rather, the unnatural father,” he replied. “More honour to Ottavio
+Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son.
+It is not a parentage in which any man--be he the most abandoned--could
+take pride.”
+
+“How so?” quoth I.
+
+“You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier
+Luigi Farnese. I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes
+must have penetrated even to a hermitage--that they would be written
+upon the very face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his
+infamous life. He is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless,
+bloody, vicious man that ever drew the breath of life. Indeed, there are
+not wanting those who call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who
+has sold his soul to the Devil. Though, for that matter, they say the
+same of the Pope his father, and I doubt not that his magic is just the
+magic of a wickedness that is scarcely human.
+
+“There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and
+a wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
+lately written the life of another Pope's son--Cesare Borgia, who
+lived nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to
+consolidate the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier
+Luigi's, was to found a State for himself. I am given to think that for
+his model of a Pope's bastard this Giovio has taken the wretched Farnese
+rogue, and attributed to the son of Alexander VI the vices and infamies
+of this son of Paul III.
+
+“Even to attempt to draw a parallel is to insult the memory of the
+Borgia; for he, at least, was a great captain and a great ruler, and he
+knew how to endear to himself the fold that he governed; so that when I
+was a lad--thirty years ago--there were still those in the Romagna who
+awaited the Borgia's return, and prayed for it as earnestly as pray the
+faithful for the second coming of the Messiah, refusing to believe that
+he was dead. But this Pier Luigi!” He thrust out a lip contemptuously.
+“He is no better than a thief, a murderer, a defiler, a bestial,
+lecherous dog!”
+
+And with that he began to relate some of the deeds of this man; and his
+life, it seemed, was written in blood and filth--a tale of murders
+and rapes and worse. And when as a climax he told me of the horrible,
+inhuman outrage done to Cosimo Gheri, the young Bishop of Fano, I begged
+him to cease, for my horror turned me almost physically sick.1
+
+1 The incident to which Agostino here alludes is fully set forth by
+Benedetto Varchi at the end of Book XVI of his Storia Fiorentina.
+
+
+“That bishop was a holy man, of very saintly life,” Galeotto insisted,
+“and the deed permitted the German Lutherans to say that here was a new
+form of martyrdom for saints invented by the Pope's son. And his father
+pardoned him the deed, and others as bad, by a secret bull, absolving
+him from all pains and penalties that he might have incurred through
+youthful frailty or human incontinence!”
+
+It was the relation of those horrors, I think, which, stirring my
+indignation, spurred me even more than the thought of redressing the
+wrongs which the Pontifical or Farnesian government would permit my
+mother to do me.
+
+I held out my hand to Galeotto. “To the utmost of my little might,”
+ said I, “you may depend upon me in this good cause in which you have
+engaged.”
+
+“There speaks the son of the house of Anguissola,” said he, a light
+of affection in his steel-coloured eyes. “And there are your father's
+wrongs to right as well as the wrongs of humanity, remember. By this
+Pier Luigi was he crushed; whilst those who bore arms with him at
+Perugia and were taken alive...” He paused and turned livid, great beads
+of perspiration standing upon his brow. “I cannot,” he faltered, “I
+cannot even now, after all these years, bear to think upon those horrors
+perpetrated by that monster.”
+
+I was strangely moved at the sight of emotion in one who seemed
+emotionless as iron.
+
+“I left the hermitage,” said I, “in the hope that I might the better be
+able to serve God in the world. I think you are showing me the way, Ser
+Galeotto.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+
+We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season
+of wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny
+to tyranny, just the three of us--Galeotto and myself with Falcone for
+our equerry and attendant.
+
+Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been
+in me; for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the
+fanaticism with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the
+course I had taken then.
+
+I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
+Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke
+of Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza--for the investiture duly
+followed in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to
+be felt throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a
+prince.
+
+And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto
+cunningly added yet another and more worldly spur. We were riding one
+day in late September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had
+spent a month in seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of
+resistance, and we were making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold
+of that great Lombard family of dal Verme.
+
+As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
+Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled
+me by his words.
+
+“Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino,” he said,
+and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.
+
+In my confusion--more or less at random--“What should Cavalcanti's
+daughter be to me?” I asked.
+
+“Why, what you will, I think,” he answered, taking my question
+literally. “Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
+a suitable mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her
+to the landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than
+any man that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired.”
+
+“Do you think I need this added spur?” quoth I.
+
+“Nay, I know that you do not. But it is well to know what reward
+may wait upon our labour. It makes that labour lighter and increases
+courage.”
+
+I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.
+
+He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender. Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti! It was a name I uttered like a prayer, like a holy
+invocation. Just so had I been in a measure content to carry that name
+and the memory of her sweet face. To consider her as the possible
+Lady of Mondolfo when I should once more have come into my own, was to
+consider things that filled me almost with despair.
+
+Again I experienced such hesitations as had kept me from ever seeking
+her at Pagliano, though I had been given the freedom of her garden.
+Giuliana had left her brand upon me. And though Bianca had by now
+achieved for me what neither prayers nor fasting could accomplish, and
+had exorcized the unholy visions of Giuliana from my mind, yet when I
+came to consider Bianca as a possible companion--as something more
+or something less than a saint enthroned in the heaven created by my
+worship of her--there rose between us ever that barrier of murder
+and adultery, a barrier which not even in imagination did I dare to
+overstep.
+
+I strove to put such thoughts from my mind that I might leave it free to
+do the work to which I had now vowed myself.
+
+All through that winter we pursued our mission. With the dal Verme we
+had but indifferent success, for they accounted themselves safe, being,
+like Cavalcanti, feudatories of the Emperor himself, and nowise included
+in the territories of Parma and Piacenza. From Romagnese we made our way
+to the stronghold of the Anguissola of Albarola, my cousins, who gave
+me a very friendly welcome, and who, though with us in spirit and
+particularly urged by their hatred of our guelphic cousin Cosimo who was
+now Pier Luigi's favourite, yet hesitated as the others had done. And
+we met with little better success with Sforza of Santafiora, to
+whose castle we next repaired, or yet with the Landi, the Scotti, or
+Confalonieri. Everywhere the same spirit of awe was abroad, and the same
+pusillanimity, content to hug the little that remained rather than rear
+its head to demand that which by right belonged.
+
+So that when the spring came round again, and our mission done, our
+crusade preached to hearts that would not be inflamed, we turned
+our steps once more towards Pagliano, we were utterly dispirited
+men--although, for myself, my despondency was tempered a little by the
+thought that I was to see Bianca once more.
+
+Yet before I come to speak of her again, let me have done with these
+historical matters in so far as they touched ourselves.
+
+We had left the nobles unresponsive, as you have seen. But soon the
+prognostications of the crafty Gonzaga were realized. Soon Farnese,
+through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy. The first
+to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their
+lands of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife
+and mother. Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing
+Romagnese to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their
+other fief of Bobbio. Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched
+upon Castel San Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and
+at the same time he committed the mistake of attempting to drive the
+Gonzaga out of Soragna.
+
+This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
+resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga. With the Imperial troops at his heels
+the Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his
+family, but forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese,
+restoring them to the dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of
+San Giovanni upon which he was at the time engaged--claiming that both
+these noble houses were feudatories of the Empire.
+
+Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
+steely claws. To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
+Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
+their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
+cities of their districts. Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed
+at once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his
+will, he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.
+
+Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
+having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
+residence in our palace in the city itself. But she went further than
+she was bidden--she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
+retired from the world.
+
+The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
+Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his
+garden, slicing the tallest poppies from their stems. And soon to swell
+his treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
+confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set
+himself to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate
+laws that were retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines
+and perpetrate fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been
+done long years ago.
+
+Amongst these, we heard that he had Giovanni d'Anguissola decapitated in
+effigy for his rebellion against the authority of the Holy See, and that
+my tyrannies of Mondolfo and Carmina were confiscated from me because of
+my offence in being Giovanni d'Anguissola's son. And presently we heard
+that Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal
+servant and captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a
+thousand ducats yearly!
+
+Galeotto ground his teeth and swore horribly when the news was brought
+us from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope
+of Bianca--the hope secretly entertained almost against hope
+itself--withering in my soul.
+
+But soon came consolation. Pier Luigi had gone too far. Even rats when
+cornered will turn at bay and bare their teeth for combat. So now the
+nobles of the Valnure and the Val di Taro.
+
+The Scotti, the Pallavicini, the Landi, and the Anguissola of Albarola,
+came one after the other in secret to Pagliano to interview the gloomy
+Galeotto. And at one gathering that was secretly held in a chamber of
+the castle, he lashed them with his furious scorn.
+
+“You are come now,” he jeered at them, “now that you are maimed; now
+that you have been bled of half your strength; now that most of your
+teeth are drawn. Had you but had the spirit and good sense to rise six
+months ago when I summoned you so to do, the struggle had been brief
+and the victory certain. Now the fight will be all fraught with risk,
+dangerous to engage, and uncertain of issue.”
+
+But it was they--these men who themselves had been so pusillanimous at
+first--who now urged him to take the lead, swearing to follow him to the
+death, to save for their children what little was still left them.
+
+“In that spirit I will not lead you a step,” he answered them. “If we
+raise our standard, we fight for all our ancient rights, for all our
+privileges, and for the restoration of all that has been confiscated;
+in short, for the expulsion of the Farnese from these lands. If that is
+your spirit, then I will consider what is to be done--for, believe me,
+open warfare will no longer avail us here. What we have to do must
+be done by guile. You have waited too long to resolve yourselves. And
+whilst you have grown weak, Farnese has been growing strong. He has
+fawned upon and flattered the populace; he has set the people against
+the nobles; he has pretended that in crushing the nobles he was serving
+the people, and they--poor fools!--have so far believed him that they
+will run to his banner in any struggle that may ensue.”
+
+He dismissed them at last with the promise that they should hear from
+him, and on the morrow, attended by Falcone only, he rode forth again
+from Pagliano, to seek out the dal Verme and the Sforza of Santafiora
+and endeavour to engage their interest against the man who had outraged
+them.
+
+And that was early in August of the year '46.
+
+I remained at Pagliano by Galeotto's request. He would have no need
+of me upon his mission. But he might desire me to seek out some of the
+others of the Val di Taro with such messages as he should send me.
+
+And in all this time I had seen but little of Monna Bianca. We met under
+her father's eye in that gold-and-purple dining-room; and there I would
+devoutly, though surreptitiously, feast my eyes upon the exquisite
+beauty of her. But I seldom spoke to her, and then it was upon the most
+trivial matters; whilst although the summer was now full fragrantly
+unfolded, yet I never dared to intrude into that garden of hers to which
+I had been bidden, ever restrained by the overwhelming memory of the
+past.
+
+So poignant was this memory that at times I caught myself wondering
+whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in lending an ear so readily
+to the arguments of Fra Gervasio, whether Fra Gervasio himself had not
+been mistaken in assuming that my place was in the world, and whether I
+had not done best to have carried out my original intention of seeking
+refuge in some monastery in the lowly position of a lay brother.
+
+Meanwhile the Lord of Pagliano used me in the most affectionate and
+fatherly manner. But not even this sufficed to encourage me where
+his daughter was concerned, and I seemed to observe also that Bianca
+herself, if she did not actually avoid my society, was certainly at no
+pains to seek it.
+
+What the end would have been but for the terrible intervention there was
+in our affairs, I have often surmised without result.
+
+It happened that one day, about a week after Galeotto had left us there
+rode up to the gates of Pagliano a very magnificent company, and there
+was great braying of horns, stamping of horses and rattle of arms.
+
+My Lord Pier Luigi Farnese had been on a visit to his city of Parma, and
+on his return journey had thought well to turn aside into the lands of
+ultra-Po, and pay a visit to the Lord of Pagliano, whom he did not love,
+yet whom, perhaps, it may have been his intention to conciliate, since
+hurt him he could not.
+
+Sufficiently severe had been the lesson he had received for meddling
+with Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of
+provoking further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V
+was a sleeping dog it was as well to leave sleeping.
+
+He rode, then, upon his friendly visit into the Castle of Pagliano,
+attended by a vast retinue of courtiers and ladies, pages, lackeys, and
+a score of men-at-arms. A messenger had ridden on in advance to
+warn Cavalcanti of the honour that the Duke proposed to do him,
+and Cavalcanti, relishing the honour no whit, yet submitting out of
+discreetness, stood to receive his excellency at the foot of the marble
+staircase with Bianca on one side and myself upon the other.
+
+Under the archway they rode, Farnese at the head of the cavalcade. He
+bestrode a splendid white palfrey, whose mane and tail were henna-dyed,
+whose crimson velvet trappings trailed almost to the ground. He was
+dressed in white velvet, even to his thigh-boots, which were laced with
+gold and armed with heavy gold spurs. A scarlet plume was clasped by a
+great diamond in his velvet cap, and on his right wrist was perched a
+hooded falcon.
+
+He was a tall and gracefully shaped man of something over forty years of
+age, black-haired and olive-skinned, wearing a small pointed beard that
+added length to his face. His nose was aquiline, and he had fine eyes,
+but under them there were heavy brown shadows, and as he came nearer it
+was seen that his countenance was marred by an unpleasant eruption of
+sores.
+
+After him came his gentlemen, a round dozen of them, with half that
+number of splendid ladies, all a very dazzling company. Behind these,
+in blazing liveries, there was a cloud of pages upon mules, and lackeys
+leading sumpter-beasts; and then to afford them an effective background,
+a grey, steel phalanx of men-at-arms.
+
+I describe his entrance as it appeared at a glance, for I did not study
+it or absorb any of its details. My horrified gaze was held by a figure
+that rode on his right hand, a queenly woman with a beautiful pale
+countenance and a lazy, insolent smile.
+
+It was Giuliana.
+
+How she came there I did not at the moment trouble to reflect. She was
+there. That was the hideous fact that made me doubt the sight of my own
+eyes, made me conceive almost that I was at my disordered visions again,
+the fruit of too much brooding. I felt as if all the blood were being
+exhausted from my heart, as if my limbs would refuse their office, and
+I leaned for support against the terminal of the balustrade by which I
+stood.
+
+She saw me. And after the first slight start of astonishment, her lazy
+smile grew broader and more insolent. I was but indifferently conscious
+of the hustle about me, of the fact that Cavalcanti himself was holding
+the Duke's stirrup, whilst the latter got slowly to the ground and
+relinquished his falcon to a groom who wore a perch suspended from his
+neck, bearing three other hooded birds. Similarly I was no more than
+conscious of being forced to face the Duke by words that Cavalcanti was
+uttering. He was presenting me.
+
+“This, my lord, is Agostino d'Anguissola.”
+
+I saw, as through a haze, the swarthy, pustuled visage frown down upon
+me. I heard a voice which was at once harsh and effeminate and quite
+detestable, saying in unfriendly tones:
+
+“The son of Giovanni d'Anguissola of Mondolfo, eh?”
+
+“The same, my lord,” said Cavalcanti, adding generously--“Giovanni
+d'Anguissola was my friend.”
+
+“It is a friendship that does you little credit, sir,” was the harsh
+answer. “It is not well to befriend the enemies of God.”
+
+Was it possible that I had heard aright? Had this human foulness dared
+to speak of God?
+
+“That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest,” said
+Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed
+from his brown eyes.
+
+At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that,
+forewarned of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that
+one blast from the silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have
+produced a tide of men-at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed
+Messer Pier Luigi and his suite.
+
+Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh. And then a lazy,
+drawling voice--a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears,
+but now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs--addressed me.
+
+“Why, here is a great change, sir saint! We had heard you had turned
+anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would
+out-dazzle Phoebus.”
+
+I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face,
+and I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us
+with eyes of grave concern.
+
+“I like you better for the change,” pursued Giuliana. “And I vow
+that you have grown at least another inch. Have you no word for me,
+Agostino?”
+
+I was forced to answer her. “I trust that all is well with you,
+Madonna,” I said.
+
+Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of
+her strong teeth. “Why, all is very well with me,” said she, and her
+sidelong glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious
+kindliness, seemed to give added explanations.
+
+That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
+wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and
+saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then,
+for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark
+turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name.
+
+And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my
+Bianca, speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy
+fire what time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily.
+He seemed to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance
+that he kept us all standing there.
+
+“You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna,” I heard him
+murmuring. “We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen
+in this garden of Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should
+be hidden in this grey casket. You were made to queen it in a court,
+Madonna; and at Piacenza you shall be hailed and honoured as its queen.”
+ And so he rambled on with his rough and trivial flattery, his foully
+pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very
+white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows,
+and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the
+courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a
+sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable adulation.
+
+It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
+peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MADONNA BIANCA
+
+
+Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
+Pagliano. But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
+upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.
+
+A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
+the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to
+his secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I
+learnt, was my old friend Annibale Caro.
+
+And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
+presence, and gave him and his suite most noble entertainment.
+
+His position was perilous and precarious in the extreme, and it needed
+all his strength of character to hold in curb the resentment that boiled
+within him to see himself thus preyed upon; and that was not the
+worst. The worst was Pier Luigi's ceaseless attentions to Bianca,
+the attentions of the satyr for the nymph, a matter in which I think
+Cavalcanti suffered little less than did I.
+
+He hoped for the best, content to wait until cause for action should
+be forced upon him. And meanwhile that courtly throng took its ease at
+Pagliano. The garden that hitherto had been Bianca's own sacred domain,
+the garden into which I had never yet dared set foot, was overrun now
+by the Duke's gay suite--a cloud of poisonous butterflies. There in the
+green, shaded alleys they disported themselves; in the lemon-grove,
+in the perfumed rose-garden, by hedges of box and screens of purple
+clematis they fluttered.
+
+Bianca sought to keep her chamber in those days, and kept it for as
+long on each day as was possible to her. But the Duke, hobbling on
+the terrace--for as a consequence of his journey on horseback he had
+developed a slight lameness, being all rotten with disease--would grow
+irritable at her absence, and insistent upon her presence, hinting that
+her retreat was a discourtesy; so that she was forced to come forth
+again, and suffer his ponderous attentions and gross flatteries.
+
+And three days later there came another to Pagliano, bidden thither by
+the Duke, and this other was none else than my cousin Cosimo, who now
+called himself Lord of Mondolfo, having been invested in that tyranny,
+as I have said.
+
+On the morning after his arrival we met upon the terrace.
+
+“My saintly cousin!” was his derisive greeting. “And yet another change
+in you--out of sackcloth into velvet! The calendar shall know you as St.
+Weathercock, I think--or, perhaps, St. Mountebank.”
+
+What followed was equally bitter and sardonic on his part, fiercely and
+openly hostile on mine. At my hostility he had smiled cruelly.
+
+“Be content with what is, my strolling saint,” he said, in the tone of
+one who gives a warning, “unless you would be back in your hermitage, or
+within the walls of some cloister, or even worse. Already have you found
+it a troublesome matter to busy yourself with the affairs of the world.
+You were destined for sanctity.” He came closer, and grew very fierce.
+“Do not put it upon me to make a saint of you by sending you to Heaven.”
+
+“It might end in your own dispatch to Hell,” said I. “Shall we essay
+it?”
+
+“Body of God!” he snarled, laughter still lingering on his white face.
+“Is this the mood of your holiness at present? What a bloodthirsty brave
+are you become! Consider, pray, sir, that if you trouble me I have no
+need to do my own office of hangman. There is sufficient against you
+to make the Tribunal of the Ruota very busy; there is--can you have
+forgotten it?--that little affair at the house of Messer Fifanti.”
+
+I dropped my glance, browbeaten for an instant. Then I looked at him
+again, and smiled.
+
+“You are but a poor coward, Messer Cosimo,” said I, “to use a shadow as
+a screen. You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana
+speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake. There are witnesses who
+will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night. There is not
+one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth
+again; and it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana
+is well-known, as it is well-known that she fled with him after the
+murder--which, in itself, is evidence of a sort. Your Duke has too great
+a respect for the feelings of the populace,” I sneered, “to venture to
+outrage them in such a matter. Besides,” I ended, “it is impossible to
+incriminate me without incriminating Giuliana and, Messer Pier Luigi
+seems, I should say, unwilling to relinquish the lady to the brutalities
+of a tribunal.”
+
+“You are greatly daring,” said he, and he was pale now, for in that last
+mention of Giuliana, it seemed that I had touched him where he was still
+sensitive.
+
+“Daring?” I rejoined. “It is more than I can say for you, Ser Cosimo.
+Yours is the coward's fault of caution.”
+
+I thought to spur him. If this failed, I was prepared to strike him, for
+my temper was beyond control. That he, standing towards me as he did,
+should dare to mock me, was more than I could brook. But at that moment
+there spoke a harsh voice just behind me.
+
+“How, sir? What words are these?”
+
+There, very magnificent in his suit of ivory velvet, stood the Duke. He
+was leaning heavily upon his cane, and his face was more blotched than
+ever, the sunken eyes more sunken.
+
+“Are you seeking to quarrel with the Lord of Mondolfo?” quoth he, and I
+saw by his smile that he used my cousin's title as a taunt.
+
+Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had
+seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now
+there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes. A little
+on one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen
+with Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us
+with half-veiled eyes.
+
+“My lord,” I answered, very stiff and erect, and giving him back look
+for look, something perhaps of the loathing with which he inspired
+me imprinted on my face, “my lord, you give yourself idle alarms. Ser
+Cosimo is too cautious to embroil himself.”
+
+He limped toward me; leaning heavily upon his stick, and it pleased me
+that of a good height though he was, he was forced to look up into my
+face.
+
+“There is too much bad Anguissola blood in you,” he said. “Be careful
+lest out of our solicitude for you, we should find it well to let our
+leech attend you.”
+
+I laughed, looking into his blotched face, considering his lame leg and
+all the evil humours in him.
+
+“By my faith, I think it is your excellency needs the attentions of a
+leech,” said I, and flung all present into consternation by that answer.
+
+I saw his face turn livid, and I saw the hand shake upon the golden
+head of his cane. He was very sensitive upon the score of his foul
+infirmities. His eyes grew baleful as he controlled himself. Then he
+smiled, displaying a ruin of blackened teeth.
+
+“You had best take care,” he said. “It were a pity to cripple such fine
+limbs as yours. But there is a certain matter upon which the Holy Office
+might desire to set you some questions. Best be careful, sir, and avoid
+disagreements with my captains.”
+
+He turned away. He had had the last word, and had left me cold with
+apprehension, yet warmed by the consciousness that in the brief
+encounter it was he who had taken the deeper wound.
+
+He bowed before Bianca. “Oh, pardon me,” he said. “I did not dream you
+stood so near. Else no such harsh sounds should have offended your fair
+ears. As for Messer d'Anguissola...” He shrugged as who would say, “Have
+pity on such a boor!”
+
+But her answer, crisp and sudden as come words that are spoken on
+impulse or inspiration, dashed his confidence.
+
+“Nothing that he said offended me,” she told him boldly, almost
+scornfully.
+
+He flashed me a glance that was full of venom, and I saw Cosimo smile,
+whilst Cavalcanti started slightly at such boldness from his meek child.
+But the Duke was sufficiently master of himself to bow again.
+
+“Then am I less aggrieved,” said he, and changed the subject. “Shall we
+to the bowling lawn?” And his invitation was direct to Bianca, whilst
+his eyes passed over her father. Without waiting for their answer,
+his question, indeed, amounting to a command, he turned sharply to
+my cousin. “Your arm, Cosimo,” said he, and leaning heavily upon his
+captain he went down the broad granite steps, followed by the little
+knot of courtiers, and, lastly, by Bianca and her father.
+
+As for me, I turned and went indoors, and there was little of the saint
+left in me in that hour. All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred
+and anger. Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that
+Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last
+to seek her out as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had
+spent at Pagliano.
+
+I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
+She was pacing slowly, having fled thither to avoid that hateful throng
+of courtiers. Seeing me she smiled timidly, and her smile gave me what
+little further encouragement I needed. I approached, and very earnestly
+rendered her my thanks for having championed my cause and supported me
+with the express sign of her approval.
+
+She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed
+and flowed in her cheeks.
+
+“You should not thank me,” said she. “What I did was done for justice's
+sake.”
+
+“I have been presumptuous,” I answered humbly, “in conceiving that it
+might have been for the sake of me.”
+
+“But it was that also,” she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she
+had pained me. “It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat
+you. I took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return
+thrust for thrust.”
+
+“I think your presence must have heartened me,” said I. “No pain could
+be so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes.”
+
+Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek. She began to
+pace slowly down the gallery, and I beside her. Presently she spoke
+again.
+
+“And yet,” she said, “I would have you cautious. Do not wantonly affront
+the Duke, for he is very powerful.”
+
+“I have little left to lose,” said I.
+
+“You have your life,” said she.
+
+“A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in
+reproach.”
+
+She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again.
+Thus we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was
+placed, with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to
+it with a little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and
+slightly over her. And now I grew strangely bold.
+
+“Set me some penance,” I cried, “that shall make me worthy.”
+
+Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
+
+“A penance?” quoth she. “I do not understand.”
+
+“All my life,” I explained, “has been a vain striving after something
+that eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned
+and rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro,
+seeking by penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had
+succumbed. That shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had
+done, the signs I believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It
+was not there that I should save myself. One night I was told so in a
+vision.”
+
+She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell
+silent, staring back at her.
+
+“You knew!” I cried.
+
+Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as
+never yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time
+openly to consider me.
+
+“I know now,” she breathed.
+
+“What do you know?” My voice was tense with excitement.
+
+“What was your vision?” she rejoined.
+
+“Have I not told you? There appeared to me one who called me back to the
+world; who assured me that there I should best serve God; who filled me
+with the conviction that she needed me. She addressed me by name, and
+spoke of a place of which I had never heard until that hour, but which
+to-day I know.”
+
+“And you? And you?” she asked. “What answer did you make?”
+
+“I called her by name, although until that hour I did not know it.”
+
+She bowed her head. Emotion set her all a-tremble.
+
+“It is what I have so often wondered,” she confessed, scarce above a
+whisper. “And it is true--as true as it is strange!”
+
+“True?” I echoed. “It was the only true miracle in that place of false
+ones, and it was so clear a call of destiny that it decided me to return
+to the world which I had abandoned. And yet I have since wondered why.
+Here there seems to be no place for me any more than there was yonder.
+I am devout again with a worldly devotion now, yet with a devotion that
+must be Heaven-inspired, so pure and sweet it is. It has shut out from
+me all the foulness of that past; and yet I am unworthy. And that is why
+I cry to you to set me some penance ere I can make my prayer.”
+
+She could not understand me, nor did she. We were not as ordinary
+lovers. We were not as man and maid who, meeting and being drawn each to
+the other, fence and trifle in a pretty game of dalliance until the maid
+opines that the appearances are safe, and that, her resistance having
+been of a seemly length, she may now make the ardently desired surrender
+with all war's honours. Nothing of that was in our wooing, a wooing
+which seemed to us, now that we spoke of it, to have been done when we
+had scarcely met, done in the vision that I had of her, and the vision
+that she had of me.
+
+With averted eyes she set me now a question.
+
+“Madonna Giuliana used you with a certain freedom on her arrival, and
+I have since heard your name coupled with her own by the Duke's ladies.
+But I have asked no questions of them. I know how false can be the
+tongues of courtly folk. I ask it now of you. What is or was this
+Madonna Giuliana to you?”
+
+“She was,” I answered bitterly, “and God pity me that I must say it to
+you--she was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses.”
+
+She made a little moan, and I saw her clasp her hands in her lap; and
+the sound and sight filled me with sorrow and despair. She must know.
+Better that the knowledge should stand between us as a barrier which
+both could see than that it should remain visible only to the eyes of my
+own soul, to daunt me.
+
+“O Bianca! Forgive me!” I cried. “I did not know! I did not know! I
+was a poor fool reared in seclusion and ripened thus for the first
+temptation that should touch me. That is what on Monte Orsaro I sought
+to expiate, that I might be worthy of the shrine I guarded then. That
+is what I would expiate now that I might be worthy of the shrine whose
+guardian I would become, the shrine at which I worship now.”
+
+I was bending very low above her little brown head, in which the threads
+of the gold coif-net gleamed in the fading light.
+
+“If I had but had my vision sooner,” I murmured, “how easy it would have
+been! Can you find mercy for me in your gentle heart? Can you forgive
+me, Bianca?
+
+“O Agostino,” she answered very sadly, and the sound of my name from her
+lips, coming so naturally and easily, thrilled me like the sound of the
+mystic music of Monte Orsaro. “What shall I answer you? I cannot now.
+Give me leisure to think. My mind is all benumbed. You have hurt me so!”
+
+“Me miserable!” I cried.
+
+“I had believed you one who erred through excess of holiness.”
+
+“Whereas I am one who attempted holiness through excess of error.”
+
+“I had believed you so, so...O Agostino!” It was a little wail of pain.
+
+“Set me a penance,” I implored her.
+
+“What penance can I set you? Will any penance restore to me my shattered
+faith?”
+
+I groaned miserably and covered my face with my hands. It seemed that I
+was indeed come to the end of all my hopes; that the world was become as
+much a mockery to me as had been the hermitage; that the one was to end
+for me upon the discovery of a fraud, as had the other ended--with the
+difference that in this case the fraud was in myself.
+
+It seemed, indeed, that our first communion must be our last. Ever since
+she had seen me step into that gold-and-purple dining-room at Pagliano,
+the incarnation of her vision, as she was the incarnation of mine,
+Bianca must have waited confidently for this hour, knowing that it was
+foreordained to come. Bitterness and disillusion were all that it had
+brought her.
+
+And then, ere more could be said, a thin, flute-like voice hissed down
+the vaulted gallery:
+
+“Madonna Bianca! To hide your beauty from our hungry eyes. To quench the
+light by which we guide our footsteps. To banish from us the happiness
+and joy of your presence! Unkind, unkind!”
+
+It was the Duke. In his white velvet suit he looked almost ghostly in
+the deepening twilight. He hobbled towards us, his stick tapping the
+black-and-white squares of the marble floor. He halted before her, and
+she put aside her emotion, donned a worldly mask, and rose to meet him.
+
+Then he looked at me, and his brooding eyes seemed to scan my face.
+
+“Why! It is Ser Agostino, Lord of Nothing,” he sneered, and down the
+gallery rang the laugh of my cousin Cosimo, and there came, too, a
+ripple of other voices.
+
+Whether to save me from friction with those steely gentlemen who aimed
+at grinding me to powder, whether from other motives, Bianca set her
+finger-tips upon the Duke's white sleeve and moved away with him.
+
+I leaned against the balustrade all numb, watching them depart. I saw
+Cosimo come upon her other side and lean over her as he moved, so slim
+and graceful, beside her own slight, graceful figure. Then I sank to the
+cushions of the seat she had vacated, and stayed there with my misery
+until the night had closed about the place, and the white marble pillars
+looked ghostly and unreal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WARNING
+
+
+I prayed that evening more fervently than I had prayed since quitting
+Monte Orsaro. It was as if all the influences of my youth, which lately
+had been shaken off in the stir of intrigue and of rides that had seemed
+the prelude to battle, were closing round me again.
+
+Even as a woman had lured me once from the ways to which I seemed
+predestined, only to drive me back once more the more frenziedly, so now
+it almost seemed as if again a woman should have lured me to the world
+but to drive me from it again and more resolutely than ever. For I was
+anew upon the edge of a resolve to have done with all human interests
+and to seek the peace and seclusion of the cloister.
+
+And then I bethought me of Gervasio. I would go to him for guidance, as
+I had done aforetime. I would ride on the morrow to seek him out in the
+convent near Piacenza to which he had withdrawn.
+
+I was disturbed at last by the coming of a page to my chamber with the
+announcement that my lord was already at supper.
+
+I had thoughts of excusing myself, but in the end I went.
+
+The repast was spread, as usual, in the banqueting-hall of the castle;
+and about the splendid table was Pier Luigi's company, amounting to
+nigh upon a score in all. The Duke himself sat on Monna Bianca's right,
+whilst on her left was Cosimo.
+
+Heeding little whether I was observed or not, I sank to a vacant place,
+midway down the board, between one of the Duke's pretty young gentlemen
+and one of the ladies of that curious train--a bold-eyed Roman woman,
+whose name, I remember, was Valeria Cesarini, but who matters nothing in
+these pages. Almost facing me sat Giuliana, but I was hardly conscious
+of her, or conscious, indeed, of any save Monna Bianca.
+
+Once or twice Bianca's glance met mine, but it fell away again upon the
+instant. She was very pale, and there were wistful lines about her lips;
+yet her mood was singular. Her eyes had an unnatural sparkle, and ever
+and anon she would smile at what was said to her in half-whispers, now
+by the Duke, now by Cosimo, whilst once or twice she laughed outright.
+Gone was the usual chill reserve with which she hedged herself about to
+distance the hateful advances of Pier Luigi. There were moments now when
+she seemed almost flattered by his vile ogling and adulatory speeches,
+as if she had been one of those brazen ladies of his Court.
+
+It wounded me sorely. I could not understand it, lacking the wit to see
+that this queer mood sprang from the blow I had dealt her, and was the
+outward manifestation of her own pain at the shattering of the illusions
+she had harboured concerning myself.
+
+And so I sat there moodily, gnawing my lip and scowling darkly upon Pier
+Luigi and upon my cousin, who was as assiduous in his attentions as his
+master, and who seemed to be receiving an even greater proportion of her
+favours. One little thing there was to hearten me. Looking at the Lord
+of Pagliano, who sat at the table's head, I observed that his glance
+was dark as it kept watch upon his daughter--that chaste white lily that
+seemed of a sudden to have assumed such wanton airs.
+
+It was a matter that stirred me to battle, and forgotten again were my
+resolves to seek Gervasio, forgotten all notion of abandoning the world
+for the second time. Here was work to be done. Bianca was to be guarded.
+Perhaps it was in this that she would come to have need of me.
+
+Once Cosimo caught my gloomy looks, and he leaned over to speak to the
+Duke, who glanced my way with languid, sneering eyes. He had a score to
+settle with me for the discomfiture he had that morning suffered at my
+hands thanks to Bianca's collaboration. He was a clumsy fool, when all
+is said, and confident now of her support--from the sudden and extreme
+friendliness of her mood--he ventured to let loose a shaft at me in a
+tone that all the table might overhear.
+
+“That cousin of yours wears a very conventual hang-dog look,” said he to
+Cosimo. And then to the lady on my right--“Forgive, Valeria,” he begged,
+“the scurvy chance that should have sat a shaveling next to you.” Lastly
+he turned to me to complete this gross work of offensiveness.
+
+“When do you look, sir, to enter the life monastic for which Heaven has
+so clearly designed you?”
+
+There were some sycophants who tittered at his stupid pleasantry; then
+the table fell silent to hear what answer I should make, and a frown sat
+like a thundercloud upon the brow of Cavalcanti.
+
+I toyed with my goblet, momentarily tempted to fling its contents in
+his pustuled face, and risk the consequences. But I bethought me of
+something else that would make a deadlier missile.
+
+“Alas!” I sighed. “I have abandoned the notion--constrained to it.”
+
+He took my bait. “Constrained?” quoth he. “Now what fool did so
+constrain you?”
+
+“No fool, but circumstance,” I answered. “It has occurred to me,” I
+explained, and I boldly held his glance with my own, “that as a simple
+monk my life would be fraught with perils, seeing that in these times
+even a bishop is not safe.”
+
+Saving Bianca (who in her sweet innocence did not so much as dream of
+the existence of such vileness as that to which I was referring and by
+which a saintly man had met his death) I do not imagine that there was
+a single person present who did not understand to what foul crime I
+alluded.
+
+The silence that followed my words was as oppressive as the silence
+which in Nature preludes thunder.
+
+A vivid flame of scarlet had overspread the Duke's countenance. It
+receded, leaving his cheeks a greenish white, even to the mottling
+pimples. Abashed, his smouldering eyes fell away before my bold, defiant
+glance. The fingers of his trembling hand tightened about the slender
+stem of his Venetian goblet, so that it snapped, and there was a gush
+of crimson wine upon the snowy napery. His lips were drawn back--like a
+dog's in the act of snarling--and showed the black stumps of his broken
+teeth. But he made no sound, uttered no word. It was Cosimo who spoke,
+half rising as he did so.
+
+“This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out.
+Suffer me...”
+
+But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my
+cousin's sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him.
+
+“Let be,” he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. “It is for
+my Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his
+board.”
+
+Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid. “You place a heavy burden on my
+shoulders,” said he, “when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me
+against another guest of mine--against one who is all but friendless and
+the son of my own best friend.”
+
+“And my worst enemy,” cried Pier Luigi hotly.
+
+“That is your excellency's own concern, not mine,” said Cavalcanti
+coldly. “But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer
+d'Anguissola's words were ill-judged in such a season. Yet in justice
+I must add that it is not the way of youth to weigh its words too
+carefully; and you gave him provocation. When a man--be he never so
+high--permits himself to taunt another, he would do well to see that he
+is not himself vulnerable to taunts.”
+
+Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with
+him.
+
+“My lord,” he said, “this is to take sides against me; to endorse the
+affront.”
+
+“Then you mistake my intention,” rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy
+dignity. “You appeal to me for judgment. And between guests I must hold
+the scales dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either. Of your
+chivalry, my lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else.”
+
+It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he
+cared nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency
+that Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of
+Parma might ruffle it unchecked.
+
+Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance. Then his eyes
+turned to Bianca, and his expression softened.
+
+“What says Madonna Bianca?” he inquired, his manner reassuming some
+measure of its courtliness. “Is her judgment as unmercifully level?”
+
+She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the
+tenseness of a situation which she did not understand.
+
+“What say I?” quoth she. “Why, that here is a deal of pother about some
+foolish words.”
+
+“And there,” cried Pier Luigi, “spoke, I think, not only beauty but
+wisdom--Minerva's utterances from the lips of Diana!”
+
+In glad relief the company echoed his forced laugh, and all sat down
+again, the incident at an end, and my contempt of the Duke increased to
+see him permit such a matter to be so lightly ended.
+
+But that night, when I had retired to my chamber, I was visited by
+Cavalcanti. He was very grave.
+
+“Agostino,” he said, “let me implore you to be circumspect, to keep a
+curb upon your bitter tongue. Be patient, boy, as I am--and I have more
+to endure.”
+
+“I marvel, sir, that you endure it,” answered I, for my mood was
+petulant.
+
+“You will marvel less when you are come to my years--if, indeed, you
+come to them. For if you pursue this course, and strike back when such
+men as Pier Luigi tap you, you will not be likely to see old age. Body
+of Satan! I would that Galeotto were here! If aught should happen to
+you...” He checked, and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+“For your father's sake I love you, Agostino, and I speak as one who
+loves you.”
+
+“I know, I know!” I cried, seizing his hand in a sudden penitence. “I
+am an ingrate and a fool. And you upheld me nobly at table. Sir, I swear
+that I will not submit you to so much concern again.”
+
+He patted my shoulder in a very friendly fashion, and his kindly
+eyes smiled upon me. “If you but promise that--for your own sake,
+Agostino--we need say no more. God send this papal by-blow takes his
+departure soon, for he is as unwelcome here as he is unbidden.”
+
+“The foul toad!” said I. “To see him daily, hourly bending over Monna
+Bianca, whispering and ogling--ugh!”
+
+“It offends you, eh? And for that I love you! There. Be circumspect and
+patient, and all will be well. Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure
+insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes.”
+
+Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort. And in the
+days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell,
+there was little provocation to do otherwise. The Duke ignored me, and
+all the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo. And
+meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality
+to which they had not been bidden.
+
+Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach
+Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview. Nor
+for that matter was I afforded the opportunity. The Duke and Cosimo
+were ever at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given
+place to his captain, for Cosimo's was the greater assiduity now.
+
+The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon
+hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was
+sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there
+was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we
+danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having
+neither the will nor the art.
+
+One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
+footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice
+behind me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and
+had come to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided
+her, neither addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me
+since the first brazen speech on her arrival.
+
+“That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have
+caught the Duke in her net of innocence,” said she.
+
+I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling
+face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon
+her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with
+Fifanti.
+
+“You are greatly daring,” said I.
+
+“To take in vain the name of her white innocence?” she answered, smiling
+superciliously. And then she grew more serious. “Look, Agostino, we were
+friends once. I would be your friend now.”
+
+“It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression.”
+
+“Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the
+ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised
+our eyes to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!” She spoke
+sneeringly.
+
+“What is that to you?” I asked.
+
+“Nothing,” she answered frankly. “But that another may have raised his
+eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught
+to you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more
+closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message.”
+
+“Stay!” I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the
+shadows of the gallery.
+
+She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery
+and insolence.
+
+“Have I moved you into sensibility?” quoth she. “Will you condescend
+to questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed,” she added with a
+stinging scorn, “you have every right to do.”
+
+“Tell me more precisely what you mean,” I begged her, for her words had
+moved me fearfully.
+
+“Gesu!” she exclaimed. “Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels?
+Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's
+health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into
+retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And
+I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I
+think that even a saint should understand me.”
+
+With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.
+
+Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I
+did not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a
+shudder her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable
+that in like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her
+to give me such advice.
+
+It was incredible. And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my
+blindness and Cavalcanti's. What precisely Farnese's designs might be I
+could not conceive. It was hard to think that he should dare so much as
+Giuliana more than hinted. It may be that, after all, there was no more
+than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to
+do what she could to avert it.
+
+In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal
+of Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome
+visit to an end.
+
+Indeed, it was so. It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the
+blindest idiot should have perceived.
+
+That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+
+Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti in the little
+anteroom that communicated with his bedroom. My patience was tried, for
+he was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all
+the sounds had died down in the castle and it was known that all had
+retired, and still there was no sign of him.
+
+I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did
+he think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing
+upon this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the
+door opened, and at last he appeared.
+
+When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light
+his face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some
+unusual agitation. He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and
+the hand with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when
+he bade them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.
+
+When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a
+tall, carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet
+in the middle of the room.
+
+But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me,
+and--
+
+“What is it, Agostino?” he inquired.
+
+“I have thought,” I answered after a moment's hesitation, “of a means by
+which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end.”
+
+And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed
+Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were
+she removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to
+amuse him and he would go his ways.
+
+There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere
+suggestion contained in my faltering words. He looked at me gravely and
+sadly out of that stern face of his.
+
+“I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago,” he said. “But who
+was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his
+visit? For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino. It is not he
+who has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca. Were such the
+case, I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the
+Duke of Parma. No, no. My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your
+cousin Cosimo.”
+
+I looked at him, amazed. It could not be. I remembered Giuliana's words.
+Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen
+no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure
+in witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom
+I had raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already
+usurped so much that was my own.
+
+“O, you must be mistaken,” I cried.
+
+“Mistaken?” he echoed. He shook his head, smiling bitterly. “There is no
+possibility of mistake. I am just come from an interview with the Duke
+and his fine captain. Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's
+hand for Cosimo d'Anguissola.”
+
+“And you?” I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
+
+“And I declined the honour,” he answered sternly, rising in his
+agitation. “I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon
+the irrevocable quality of my determination; and then this pestilential
+Duke had the effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he
+had the power to compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind
+me that behind him he had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy
+Office. And when I defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of
+the Emperor, he suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the
+Court of the Inquisition.”
+
+“My God!” I cried in liveliest fear.
+
+“An idle threat!” he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride
+the room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
+
+“What have I to do with the Holy Office?” he snorted. “But they had
+worse indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that
+Giovanni d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew
+it to have been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of
+Mondolfo, and to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano,
+Mondolfo and Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo
+d'Anguissola was the way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of
+Mondolfo already, should receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the
+Duke.”
+
+“Was such indeed your intention?” I asked scarce above a whisper,
+overawed as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and
+wickedness have cost them.
+
+He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking
+up into my face. “It has been my fondest dream, Agostino,” he said.
+
+I groaned. “It is a dream that never can be realized now,” said I
+miserably.
+
+“Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of
+Mondolfo,” he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
+
+I reddened and paled under his glance.
+
+“Nor otherwise,” said I. “For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt
+which I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should have remained
+out of this world to which you caused me to return--unless, indeed, my
+present torment is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed,
+I was but brought back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil
+that I have wrought.”
+
+He smiled a little. “Is it so with you? Why, then, you afflict yourself
+too soon, boy. You are over-hasty to judge. I am her father, and my
+little Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply. I read her
+better than do you, Agostino. But we will talk of this again.”
+
+He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had
+fired me with such exalted hopes. “Meanwhile, there is this Farnese
+dog with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house.
+He threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable
+mind--until I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his
+henchman; and he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought,
+and impudently assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola--in that guelphic
+jackal--I had a husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti.”
+
+He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
+
+“The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence,” I said. “Let her seek
+shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his
+departure. And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little
+inclination to linger.”
+
+He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his
+clear-cut face. “Never!” he snapped. “The thing could have been done two
+weeks ago, when they first came. It would have seemed that the step was
+determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not
+alter my plans. But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is
+not my way.
+
+“Go, Agostino. Let me have the night to think. I know not how to act.
+But we will talk again to-morrow.”
+
+It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were
+face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in
+hand.
+
+That I slept little will be readily conceived. I plagued my mind
+with this matter of Cosimo's suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate
+intent--to bring Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it
+one who was devoted to Farnese.
+
+And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had
+said: that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter's mind. My
+hopes rose and tortured me with the suspense they held. Then came to me
+the awful thought that here there might be a measure of retribution,
+and that it might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had
+unconsciously bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this
+pure and holy love.
+
+I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think,
+that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and
+that so we might have speech.
+
+Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me. I had been pacing the terrace
+some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands
+through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw
+her issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
+
+Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her
+without a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
+
+“I was seeking you, Agostino,” she said in greeting.
+
+“Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go,” said I.
+
+But she was resolutely barring my way. A slow smile parted her scarlet
+lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so
+lovely and now I loathed.
+
+“I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you
+were in no such haste to shun me.”
+
+I crimsoned under her insolent regard. “Have you the courage to
+remember?” I exclaimed.
+
+“Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories,” said she.
+
+“Happy?” quoth I.
+
+“Do you deny that we were happy on that morning?--it would be just about
+this time of year, two years ago. And what a change in you since then!
+Heigho! And yet men say that woman is inconstant!”
+
+“I did not know you then,” I answered harshly.
+
+“And do you know me now? Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you
+gathered wisdom in the wilderness?”
+
+I looked at her with detestation in my eyes. The effrontery, the ease
+and insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter
+shamelessness and heartlessness.
+
+“The day after... after your husband died,” I said, “I saw you in a dell
+near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara. In that hour I knew you.”
+
+She bit her lip, then smiled again. “What would you?” answered she.
+“Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger
+of my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous,
+offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and
+dungeons,” she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. “Are you,
+of all men, the one to blame me?”
+
+“I have not the right, I know,” I answered. “Nor do I blame you more
+than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly--since I
+despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings
+are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to
+go.”
+
+“I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino,” she answered,
+all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what
+emotions might be hers. “It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of
+Pagliano.”
+
+“There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon,” said I.
+
+“It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he
+has already heard it from me.”
+
+“The thing you told me was false,” said I. “It was begotten of fear
+to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the
+circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for
+Cosimo d'Anguissola.”
+
+“For Cosimo?” she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.
+“For Cosimo? You are sure of this?” The urgency of her tone was such
+that it held me there and compelled my answer.
+
+“I have it from my lord himself.”
+
+She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised
+them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness
+in every line of her face.
+
+“Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?” she mused.
+
+And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. “I
+see it!” she exclaimed. “O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman
+manner of using complaisant husbands.”
+
+“Madonna!” I rebuked her angrily--angry to think that anyone should
+conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
+
+“Gesu!” she returned with a shrug. “The thing is plain enough if you
+will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should
+provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once
+she is safely away--as Cosimo's wife...”
+
+“Stop!” I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then
+collecting myself. “Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so
+infamous a compact?”
+
+“Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any
+interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay,
+and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is
+consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is
+no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in
+secret.”
+
+I looked at her between doubt and horror.
+
+“Why should you mistrust me?” she asked, answering my look. “I have been
+frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve.
+You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino.” And the
+sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. “No, no,
+beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are
+in peril.”
+
+I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to
+such interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
+
+“Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint,” she sneered. “Having cast me off
+and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course.” And with that she
+moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head
+to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you
+shall find, though little was it to have been supposed so then.
+
+I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more
+closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But
+then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that
+her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
+
+I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with
+Cosimo.
+
+“Still pursuing the old love,” he greeted me, smiling and jerking his
+head in the direction of Giuliana. “We ever return to it in the end,
+they say; yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord
+Pier Luigi in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant.”
+
+I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to
+pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me
+and tapped my shoulder.
+
+“One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my
+hands. Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano
+from your feet. An evil is hanging over you here.”
+
+I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
+
+“It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal,” said
+I, and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen,
+the colour recede from it.
+
+“What do you mean?” he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by
+the term I had employed. “What things has that trull dared to...”
+
+I cut in. “I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more.”
+
+We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us
+the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was
+so fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I
+think.
+
+I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
+
+I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in
+a gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the
+matter thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove
+Bianca not later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to
+arrange it he would ride forth at once.
+
+I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I
+lounged in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and
+considering whether to impart to him the further information I had that
+morning gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring
+myself to tell him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting
+against Bianca. It was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me.
+Indeed I could scarcely bear to think of it.
+
+Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went
+along the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were
+descending the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the
+courtyard.
+
+Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the
+foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel
+cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In
+attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
+
+We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten
+upon my arm.
+
+“What is it?” I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. “These are
+familiars of the Holy Office,” he answered me, his tone very grave. In
+that moment the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase
+to meet us, and his face, too, was very solemn.
+
+We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was
+entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
+
+“Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano,” said Farnese. “The Holy Office has
+sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been
+seeking for over a year.”
+
+“For me?” I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. “What has the
+Holy Office to do with me?”
+
+The leading familiar advanced. “If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there
+is a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to
+answer before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome.”
+
+“Sacrilege?” I echoed, entirely bewildered--for my first thought had
+been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti,
+and that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter
+secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had
+evoked its power.
+
+The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was
+a matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I
+well knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.
+
+“Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?” I asked.
+
+“The tribunal will inform you,” replied the familiar--a tall, sallow,
+elderly man.
+
+“The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity,” said
+Cavalcanti suddenly. “Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are
+not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano.”
+
+The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind
+me in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn
+to look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
+
+“You will not be so ill-advised, my lord,” he was saying, “as to compel
+us to use force.”
+
+“You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it,” laughed
+Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. “I have five score men-at-arms
+within these walls, Messer Black-clothes.”
+
+The familiar bowed. “That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as
+you say. But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously
+against the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty
+which they are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of
+their just resentment.”
+
+Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this
+tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I
+seized his arm.
+
+“It is a trap!” I muttered in his ear. “Beware!”
+
+I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face
+a sly smile--the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come
+venturing from its lair. And I saw the smile perish--to confirm my
+suspicions--when at my whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his
+rashness.
+
+Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
+
+“I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir,” said I. “Meanwhile,
+and you, gentlemen--give us leave apart.” And I drew the bewildered
+Cavalcanti aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the
+gallery.
+
+“My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake,” I implored him. “I am assured that
+here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as
+your valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you
+not see that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against
+you, and that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you?
+Indeed, if they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano,
+had been guilty of contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy
+Inquisition, that bigot Charles V would be the first to deliver you over
+to the ghastly practices of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord,
+that I should tell you this.”
+
+“My God!” he groaned in utter misery. “But you, Agostino?”
+
+“There is nothing against me,” I answered impatiently. “What sacrilege
+have I ever committed? The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived
+with a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi there. Courage, then, and
+self-restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims. Come, my lord, I will
+ride to Rome with them. And do not doubt that I shall return very soon.”
+
+He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in
+every line of a face that was wont to look so resolute. He knew himself
+between the sword and the wall.
+
+“I would that Galeotto were here!” cried that man usually so
+self-reliant. “What will he say to me when he comes? You were a sacred
+charge, boy.”
+
+“Say to him that I will be returning shortly--which must be true. Come,
+then. You may serve me this way. The other way you will but have to
+endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is
+precisely what they seek.”
+
+He braced himself at the thought of Bianca. We turned, and in silence
+we paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that
+Cavalcanti's face had grown very haggard.
+
+“I yield me, sir,” I said to the familiar.
+
+“A wise decision,” sneered the Duke.
+
+“I trust you'll find it so, my lord,” I answered, sneering too.
+
+They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti,
+I mounted and my funereal escort closed about me. We rode across the
+courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the
+familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the
+stoutest-hearted man. As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on
+the morning air:
+
+“Agostino!”
+
+Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
+
+I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing
+in the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after
+me, her arms outheld. And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank
+with a little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
+
+I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and
+I prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to
+pay for all the sins of his recreant life.
+
+And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned
+to tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry
+of Bianca's made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the
+Holy Office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PAPAL BULL
+
+
+And now, that you may understand to the full the thing that happened,
+it is necessary that I should relate it here in its proper sequence,
+although that must entail my own withdrawal for a time from pages upon
+which too long I have intruded my own doings and thoughts and feelings.
+
+I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share
+in it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be
+a witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail
+of what this one said and how that one looked.
+
+I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim
+escort, and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the
+door of my dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into
+the courtyard of Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
+
+He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was
+witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging
+in the gallery at the time.
+
+Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing
+of the Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma,
+whilst the Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms
+garrisoned in Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free
+company.
+
+But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from
+suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved
+himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings
+to the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense,
+and craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
+
+The condottiero swung down from his saddle unaided--a thing which
+he could do even when full-armed--and stood before Farnese, a grim,
+dust-stained figure, with a curious smile twisting his scarred face.
+
+“Why,” said he, in answer, “I have been upon business that concerns your
+magnificence somewhat closely.”
+
+And with Falcone at his heels he advanced, the horses relinquished to
+the grooms who had hastened forward.
+
+“Upon business that concerns me?” quoth the Duke, intrigued.
+
+“Why, yes,” said Galeotto, who stood now face to face with Farnese at
+the foot of the steps up which the Duke's attendants were straggling.
+“I have been recruiting forces, and since one of these days your
+magnificence is to give me occupation, you will see that the matter
+concerns you.”
+
+Above leaned Cavalcanti, his face grey and haggard, without the heart to
+relish the wicked humour of Galeotto that could make jests for his own
+entertainment. True there was also Falcone to overhear, appreciate, and
+grin under cover of his great brown hand.
+
+“Does this mean that you are come to your senses on the score of a
+stipend, Ser Galeotto?” quoth the Duke.
+
+“I am not a trader out of the Giudecca to haggle over my wares,” replied
+the burly condottiero. “But I nothing doubt that your magnificence and I
+will come to an understanding at the last.”
+
+“Five thousand ducats yearly is my offer,” said Farnese, “provided that
+you bring three hundred lances.”
+
+“Ah, well!” said Galeotto softly, “you may come to regret one of these
+days, highness, that you did not think well to pay me the price I ask.”
+
+“Regret?” quoth the Duke, with a frown of displeasure at so much
+frankness.
+
+“When you see me engaged in the service of some other,” Galeotto
+explained. “You need a condottiero, my lord; and you may come to need
+one even more than you do now.”
+
+“I have the Lord of Mondolfo,” said the Duke.
+
+Galeotto stared at him with round eyes. “The Lord of Mondolfo?” quoth
+he, intentionally uncomprehending.
+
+“You have not heard? Why, here he stands.” And he waved a jewelled hand
+towards Cosimo, a handsome figure in green and blue, standing nearest to
+Farnese.
+
+Galeotto looked at this Anguissola, and his brow grew very black.
+
+“So,” he said slowly, “you are the Lord of Mondolfo, eh? I think you are
+very brave.”
+
+“I trust my valour will not be lacking when the proof of it is needed,”
+ answered Cosimo haughtily, feeling the other's unfriendly mood and
+responding to it.
+
+“It cannot,” said Galeotto, “since you have the courage to assume that
+title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser
+Cosimo. Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was
+a truly miserable end. His father before him was poisoned by his best
+friend, and as for the last who legitimately bore that title--why, none
+can say that the poor lad was fortunate.”
+
+“The last who legitimately bore that title?” cried Cosimo, very ruffled.
+“I think, sir, it is your aim to affront me.”
+
+“And what is more,” continued the condottiero, as if Cosimo had not
+spoken, “not only are the lords of Mondolfo unlucky in themselves, but
+they are a source of ill luck to those they serve. Giovanni's father had
+but taken service with Cesare Borgia when the latter's ruin came at the
+hands of Pope Julius II. What Giovanni's own friendship cost his friends
+none knows better than your highness. So that, when all is said, I think
+you had better look about you for another condottiero, magnificent.”
+
+The magnificent stood gnawing his beard and brooding darkly, for he
+was a grossly superstitious fellow who studied omens and dabbled in
+horoscopes, divinations, and the like. And he was struck by the thing
+that Galeotto said. He looked at Cosimo darkly. But Cosimo laughed.
+
+“Who believes such old wives' tales? Not I, for one.”
+
+“The more fool you!” snapped the Duke.
+
+“Indeed, indeed,” Galeotto applauded. “A disbelief in omens can but
+spring from an ignorance of such matters. You should study them, Messer
+Cosimo. I have done so, and I tell you that the lordship of Mondolfo
+is unlucky to all dark-complexioned men. And when such a man has a mole
+under the left ear as you have--in itself a sign of death by hanging--it
+is well to avoid all risks.”
+
+“Now that is very strange!” muttered the Duke, much struck by this
+whittling down of Cosimo's chances, whilst Cosimo shrugged impatiently
+and smiled contemptuously. “You seem to be greatly versed in these
+matters, Ser Galeotto,” added Farnese.
+
+“He who would succeed in whatever he may undertake should qualify
+to read all signs,” said Galeotto sententiously. “I have sought this
+knowledge.”
+
+“Do you see aught in me that you can read?” inquired the Duke in all
+seriousness.
+
+Galeotto considered him a moment without any trace in his eyes of the
+wicked mockery that filled his soul. “Why,” he answered slowly, “not in
+your own person, magnificent--leastways, not upon so brief a glance. But
+since you ask me, I have lately been considering the new coinage of your
+highness.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the Duke, all eagerness, whilst several of his
+followers came crowding nearer--for all the world is interested in
+omens. “What do you read there?”
+
+“Your fate, I think.”
+
+“My fate?”
+
+“Have you a coin upon you?”
+
+Farnese produced a gold ducat, fire-new from the mint. The condottiero
+took it and placed his finger upon the four letters P L A C--the
+abbreviation of “Placentia” in the inscription.
+
+“P--L--A--C,” he spelled. “That contains your fate, magnificent, and
+you may read it for yourself.” And he returned the coin to the Duke, who
+stared at the letters foolishly and then at this reader of omens.
+
+“But what is the meaning of PLAC?” he asked, and he had paled a little
+with excitement.
+
+“I have a feeling that it is a sign. I cannot say more. I can but point
+it out to you, my lord, and leave the deciphering of it to yourself, who
+are more skilled than most men in such matters. Have I your excellency's
+leave to go doff this dusty garb?” he concluded.
+
+“Ay, go, sir,” answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted
+brows over the coin that bore his image.
+
+“Come, Falcone,” said Galeotto, and with his equerry at his heels he set
+his foot on the first step.
+
+Cosimo leaned forward, a sneer on his white hawk-face, “I trust, Ser
+Galeotto, that you are a better condottiero than a charlatan.”
+
+“And you, sir,” said Galeotto, smiling his sweetest in return, “are, I
+trust, a better charlatan than a condottiero.”
+
+He went up the stairs, the gaudy throng making way before him, and he
+came at last to the top, where stood the Lord of Pagliano awaiting
+him, a great trouble in his eyes. They clasped hands in silence, and
+Cavalcanti went in person to lead his guest to his apartments.
+
+“You have not a happy air,” said Galeotto as they went. “And, Body of
+God! it is no matter for marvel considering the company you keep. How
+long has the Farnese beast been here?”
+
+“His visit is now in its third week,” said Cavalcanti, answering
+mechanically.
+
+Galeotto swore in sheer surprise. “By the Host! And what keeps him?”
+
+Cavalcanti shrugged and let his arms fall to his sides. To Galeotto this
+proud, stern baron seemed most oddly dispirited.
+
+“I see that we must talk,” he said. “Things are speeding well and
+swiftly now,” he added, dropping his voice. “But more of that presently.
+I have much to tell you.”
+
+When they had reached the chamber that was Galeotto's, and the doors
+were closed and Falcone was unbuckling his master's spurs--“Now for my
+news,” said the condottiero. “But first, to spare me repetitions, let us
+have Agostino here. Where is he?”
+
+The look on Cavalcanti's face caused Galeotto to throw up his head like
+a spirited animal that scents danger.
+
+“Where is he?” he repeated, and old Falcone's fingers fell idle upon the
+buckle on which they were engaged.
+
+Cavalcanti's answer was a groan. He flung his long arms to the ceiling,
+as if invoking Heaven's aid; then he let them fall again heavily, all
+strength gone out of them.
+
+Galeotto stood an instant looking at him and turning very white.
+Suddenly he stepped forward, leaving Falcone upon his knees.
+
+“What is this?” he said, his voice a rumble of thunder. “Where is the
+boy? I say.”
+
+The Lord of Pagliano could not meet the gaze of those steel coloured
+eyes.
+
+“O God!” he groaned. “How shall I tell you?”
+
+“Is he dead?” asked Galeotto, his voice hard.
+
+“No, no--not dead. But... But...” The plight of one usually so strong, so
+full of mastery and arrogance, was pitiful.
+
+“But what?” demanded the condottiero. “Gesu! Am I a woman, or a man
+without sorrows, that you need to stand hesitating? Whatever it may be,
+speak, then, and tell me.”
+
+“He is in the clutches of the Holy Office,” answered Cavalcanti
+miserably.
+
+Galeotto looked at him, his pallor increasing. Then he sat down
+suddenly, and, elbows on knees, he took his head in his hands and spoke
+no word for a spell, during which time Falcone, still kneeling, looked
+from one to the other in an agony of apprehension and impatience to hear
+more.
+
+Neither noticed the presence of the equerry; nor would it have mattered
+if they had, for he was trusty as steel, and they had no secrets from
+him.
+
+At last, having gained some measure of self-control, Galeotto begged to
+know what had happened, and Cavalcanti related the event.
+
+“What could I do? What could I do?” he cried when he had finished.
+
+“You let them take him?” said Galeotto, like a man who repeats the thing
+he has been told, because he cannot credit it. “You let them take him?”
+
+“What alternative had I?” groaned Cavalcanti, his face ashen and seared
+with pain.
+
+“There is that between us, Ettore, that... that will not let me credit
+this, even though you tell it me.”
+
+And now the wretched Lord of Pagliano began to use the very arguments
+that I had used to him. He spoke of Cosimo's suit of his daughter, and
+how the Duke sought to constrain him to consent to the alliance. He
+urged that in this matter of the Holy Office was a trap set for him to
+place him in Farnese's power.
+
+“A trap?” roared the condottiero, leaping up. “What trap? Where is this
+trap? You had five score men-at-arms under your orders here--three score
+of them my own men, each one of whom would have laid down his life for
+me, and you allowed the boy to be taken hence by six rascals from the
+Holy Office, intimidated by a paltry score of troopers that rode with
+this filthy Duke!”
+
+“Nay, nay--not that,” the other protested. “Had I dared to raise a
+finger I should have brought myself within the reach of the Inquisition
+without benefiting Agostino. That was the trap, as Agostino himself
+perceived. It was he himself who urged me not to intervene, but to let
+them take him hence, since there was no possible charge which the Holy
+Office could prefer against him.”
+
+“No charge!” cried Galeotto, with a withering scorn. “Did villainy ever
+want for invention? And this trap? Body of God, Ettore, am I to account
+you a fool after all these years? What trap was there that could be
+sprung upon you as things stood? Why, man, the game was in your hands
+entirely. Here was this Farnese in your power. What better hostage than
+that could you have held? You had but to whistle your war-dogs to
+heel and seize his person, demanding of the Pope his father a plenary
+absolution and indemnity for yourself and for Agostino from any
+prosecutions of the Holy Office ere you surrendered him. And had they
+attempted to employ force against you, you could have held them in check
+by threatening to hang the Duke unless the parchments you demanded were
+signed and delivered to you. My God, Ettore! Must I tell you this?”
+
+Cavalcanti sank to a seat and took his head in his hands.
+
+“You are right,” he said. “I deserve all your reproaches. I have been a
+fool. Worse--I have wanted for courage.” And then, suddenly, he reared
+his head again, and his glance kindled. “But it is not yet too late,” he
+cried, and started up. “It is still time!”
+
+“Time!” sneered Galeotto. “Why, the boy is in their hands. It is hostage
+for hostage now, a very different matter. He is lost--irretrievably
+lost!” he ended, groaning. “We can but avenge him. To save him is beyond
+our power.”
+
+“No,” said Cavalcanti. “It is not. I am a dolt, a dotard; and I have
+been the cause of it. Then I shall pay the price.”
+
+“What price?” quoth the condottiero, pondering the other with an eye
+that held no faintest gleam of hope.
+
+“Within an hour you shall have in your hands the necessary papers to set
+Agostino at liberty; and you shall carry them yourself to Rome. It is
+the amend I owe you. It shall be made.”
+
+“But how is it possible?”
+
+“It is possible, and it shall be done. And when it is done you may count
+upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential
+Duke in ruin.”
+
+He strode to the door, his step firm once more and his face set, though
+it was very grey. “I will leave you now. But you may count upon the
+fulfilment of my promise.”
+
+He went out, leaving Galeotto and Falcone alone, and the condottiero
+flung himself into a chair and sat there moodily, deep in thought, still
+in his dusty garments and with no thought for changing them. Falcone
+stood by the window, looking out upon the gardens and not daring to
+intrude upon his master's mood.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti found them a hour later when he returned. He brought
+a parchment, to which was appended a great seal bearing the Pontifical
+arms. He thrust it into Galeotto's hand.
+
+“There,” he said, “is the discharge of the debt which through my
+weakness and folly I have incurred.”
+
+Galeotto looked at the parchment, then at Cavalcanti, and then at the
+parchment once more. It was a papal bull of plenary pardon and indemnity
+to me.
+
+“How came you by this?” he asked, astonished.
+
+“Is not Farnese the Pope's son?” quoth Cavalcanti scornfully.
+
+“But upon what terms was it conceded? If it involves your honour, your
+life, or your liberty, here's to make an end of it.” And he held
+it across in his hands as if to tear it, looking up at the Lord of
+Pagliano.
+
+“It involves none of these,” the latter answered steadily. “You had best
+set out at once. The Holy Office can be swift to act.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+
+I was haled from my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figures
+that looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their heads
+and faces covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for their
+eyes. Seen by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried to
+that subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, their
+very hands tucked away into the wide-mouthed sleeves of their habits,
+looked spectral and lurid--horrific messengers of death.
+
+By chill, dark passages of stone, through which our steps reverberated,
+they brought me to a pillared, vaulted underground chamber, lighted by
+torches in iron brackets on the walls.
+
+On a dais stood an oaken writing-table bearing two massive wax tapers
+and a Crucifix. At this table sat a portly, swarthy-visaged man in the
+black robes of the order of St. Dominic. Immediately below and flanking
+him on either hand sat two mute cowled figures to do the office of
+amanuenses.
+
+Away on the right, where the shadows were but faintly penetrated by the
+rays of the torches, stood an engine of wood somewhat of the size and
+appearance of the framework of a couch, but with stout straps of leather
+to pinion the patient, and enormous wooden screws upon which the frame
+could be made to lengthen or contract. From the ceiling grey ropes
+dangled from pulleys, like the tentacles of some dread monster of
+cruelty.
+
+One glance into that gloomy part of the chamber was enough for me.
+
+Repressing a shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept my
+eyes upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors. And he was
+horror enough for any man in my circumstances to envisage.
+
+He was very fat, with a shaven, swarthy face and the dewlap of an ox.
+In that round fleshliness his eyes were sunken like two black buttons,
+malicious through their very want of expression. His mouth was
+loose-lipped and gluttonous and cruel.
+
+When he spoke, the deep rumbling quality of his voice was increased by
+the echoes of that vaulted place.
+
+“What is your name?” he said.
+
+“I am Agostino d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and...”
+
+“Pass over your titles,” he boomed. “The Holy Office takes no account of
+worldly rank. What is your age?”
+
+
+“I am in my twenty-first year.”
+
+“Benedicamus Dominum,” he commented, though I could not grasp the
+appositeness of the comment. “You stand accused, Agostino d'Anguissola,
+of sacrilege and of defiling holy things. What have you to say? Do you
+confess your guilt?”
+
+“I am so far from confessing it,” I answered, “that I have yet to
+learn what is the nature of the sacrilege with which I am charged. I am
+conscious of no such sin. Far from it, indeed...”
+
+“You shall be informed,” he interrupted, imposing silence upon me by a
+wave of his fat hand; and heaving his vast bulk sideways--“Read him the
+indictment,” he bade one of the amanuenses.
+
+From the depths of a vizored cowl came a thin, shrill voice:
+
+“The Holy Office has knowledge that Agostino d'Anguissola did for a
+space of some six months, during the winter of the year of Our Blessed
+Lord 1544, and the spring of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1545, pursue
+a fraudulent and sacrilegious traffic, adulterating, for moneys which
+he extorted from the poor and the faithful, things which are holy, and
+adapting them to his own base purposes. It is charged against him
+that in a hermitage on Monte Orsaro he did claim for an image of St.
+Sebastian that it was miraculous, that it had power to heal suffering
+and that miraculously it bled from its wounds each year during Passion
+Week, whence it resulted that pilgrimages were made to this false shrine
+and great store of alms was collected by the said Agostino d'Anguissola,
+which moneys he appropriated to his own purposes. It is further known
+that ultimately he fled the place, fearing discovery, and that after his
+flight the image was discovered broken and the cunning engine by which
+this diabolical sacrilege was perpetrated was revealed.”
+
+Throughout the reading, the fleshy eyes of the inquisitor had been
+steadily, inscrutably regarding me. He passed a hand over his pendulous
+chin, as the thin voice faded into silence.
+
+“You have heard,” said he.
+
+“I have heard a tangle of falsehood,” answered I. “Never was truth more
+untruly told than this.”
+
+The beady eyes vanished behind narrowing creases of fat; and yet I knew
+that they were still regarding me. Presently they appeared again.
+
+“Do you deny that the image contained this hideous engine of fraud?”
+
+“I do not,” I answered.
+
+“Set it down,” he eagerly bade one of the amanuenses. “He confesses thus
+much.” And then to me--“Do you deny that you occupied that hermitage
+during the season named?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Set it down,” he said again. “What, then, remains?” he asked me.
+
+“It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud. The trickster was a
+pretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I was
+present. I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in the
+miraculous image, refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested to
+me, to credit that any man could have dared so vile and sacrilegious
+a thing. In the end, when it was broken and its fraud discovered, I
+quitted that ghastly shrine of Satan's in horror and disgust.”
+
+There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face. “That is the obvious
+defence,” he said slowly. “But it does not explain the appropriation of
+the moneys.”
+
+“I appropriated none,” I cried angrily. That is the foulest lie of all.”
+
+“Do you deny that alms were made?”
+
+“Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware. A
+vessel of baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of the
+faithful. It had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a part
+of these alms among the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build a
+bridge over the Bagnanza torrent, which was greatly needed.”
+
+“Well, well?” quoth he. “And when you left you took with you the moneys
+that had been collected?”
+
+“I did not,” I answered. “I gave the matter no thought. When I left
+I took nothing with me--not so much as the habit I had worn in that
+hermitage.”
+
+There was a pause. Then he spoke slowly. “Such is not the evidence
+before the Holy Office.”
+
+“What evidence?” I cried, breaking in upon his speech. “Where is my
+accuser? Set me face to face with him.”
+
+Slowly he shook his huge head with its absurd fringe of greasy locks
+about the tonsured scalp--that symbol of the Crown of Thorns.
+
+“You must surely know that such is not the way of the Holy Office. In
+its wisdom this tribunal holds that to produce delators would be to
+subject them perhaps to molestation, and thus dry up the springs of
+knowledge and information which it now enjoys. So that your request
+is idle as idle as is the attempt at defence that you have made, the
+falsehoods with which you have sought to clog the wheels of justice.”
+
+“Falsehood, sir monk?” quoth I, so fiercely that one of my attendants
+set a restraining hand upon my arm.
+
+The beady eyes vanished and reappeared, and they considered me
+impassively.
+
+“Your sin, Agostino d'Anguissola,” said he in his booming, level voice,
+“is the most hideous that the wickedness of man could conceive or
+diabolical greed put into execution. It is the sin that more than any
+other closes the door to mercy. It is the offence of Simon Mage, and
+it is to be expiated only through the gates of death. You shall return
+hence to your cell, and when the door closes upon you, it closes upon
+you for all time in life, nor shall you ever see your fellow-man again.
+There hunger and thirst shall be your executioners, slowly to deprive
+you of a life of which you have not known how to make better use.
+Without light or food or drink shall you remain there until you die.
+This is the punishment for such sacrilege as yours.”
+
+I could not believe it. I stood before him what time he mouthed out
+those horrible and emotionless words. He paused a moment, and again came
+that broad gesture of his that stroked mouth and chin. Then he resumed:
+
+“So much for your body. There remains your soul. In its infinite mercy,
+the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in this
+life, and that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell.
+Therefore it urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowal
+ere you go hence. Confess, then, my son, and save your soul.”
+
+“Confess?” I echoed. “Confess to a falsehood? I have told you the truth
+of this matter. I tell you that in all the world there is none less
+prone to sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout and
+faithful. These are lies which have been uttered to my hurt. In dooming
+me you doom an innocent man. Be it so. I do not know that I have found
+the world so delectable a place as to quit it with any great regret.
+My blood be upon your own heads and upon this iniquitous and monstrous
+tribunal. But spare yourselves at least the greater offence of asking my
+confession of a falsehood.”
+
+The little eyes had vanished. The face grew very evil, stirred at last
+into animosity by my denunciation of that court. Then the inscrutable
+mask slipped once more over that odious countenance.
+
+He took up a little mallet, and struck a gong that stood beside him.
+
+I heard a creaking of hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to my
+right, where I had perceived no door. Two men came forth--brawny,
+muscular, bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoats
+cut deep at the neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked. The
+foremost carried a thong of leather in his hands.
+
+“The hoist,” said the inquisitor shortly.
+
+The men advanced towards me and came to replace the familiars between
+whom I had been standing. Each seized an arm, and they held me so. I
+made no resistance.
+
+“Will you confess?” the inquisitor demanded. “There is still time to save
+yourself from torture.”
+
+But already the torture had commenced, for the very threat of it is
+known as the first degree. I was in despair. Death I could suffer. But
+under torments I feared that my strength might fail. I felt my flesh
+creeping and tightening upon my body, which had grown very cold with
+the awful chill of fear; my hair seemed to bristle and stiffen until I
+thought that I could feel each separate thread of it.
+
+“I swear to you that I have spoken the truth,” I cried desperately. “I
+swear it by the sacred image of Our Redeemer standing there before you.”
+
+“Shall we believe the oath of an unbeliever attainted of sacrilege?” he
+grumbled, and he almost seemed to sneer.
+
+“Believe or not,” I answered. “But believe this--that one day you shall
+stand face to face with a Judge Whom there is no deceiving, to answer
+for the abomination that you make of justice in His Holy Name. Let loose
+against me your worst cruelties, then; they shall be as caresses to the
+torments that will be loosed against you when your turn for Judgment
+comes.”
+
+“To the hoist with him,” he commanded, stretching an arm towards the
+grey tentacle-like ropes. “We must soften his heart and break the
+diabolical pride that makes him persevere in blasphemy.”
+
+They led me aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew down
+the ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a level
+with my wrists. And this was torture of the second degree--to see its
+imminence.
+
+“Will you confess?” boomed the inquisitor's voice. I made him no answer.
+
+“Strip and attach him,” he commanded.
+
+The executioners laid hold of me, and in the twinkling of an eye I stood
+naked to the waist. I caught my lips in my teeth as the ropes were
+being adjusted to my wrists, and as thus I suffered torture of the third
+degree.
+
+“Will you confess?” came again the question.
+
+And scarcely had it been put--for the last time, as I well knew--than
+the door was flung open, and a young man in black sprang into the
+chamber, and ran to thrust a parchment before the inquisitor.
+
+The inquisitor made a sign to the executioners to await his pleasure.
+
+I stood with throbbing pulses, and waited, instinctively warned that
+this concerned me. The inquisitor took the parchment, considered its
+seals and then the writing upon it.
+
+That done he set it down and turned to face us.
+
+“Release him,” he bade the executioners, whereat I felt as I would faint
+in the intensity of this reaction.
+
+When they had done his bidding, the Dominican beckoned me forward. I
+went, still marvelling.
+
+“See,” he said, “how inscrutable are the Divine ways, and how truth must
+in the end prevail. Your innocence is established, after all, since the
+Holy Father himself has seen cause to intervene to save you. You are
+at liberty. You are free to depart and to go wheresoever you will. This
+bull concerns you.” And he held it out to me.
+
+My mind moved through these happenings as a man moves through a dense
+fog, faltering and hesitating at every step. I took the parchment and
+considered it. Satisfied as to its nature, however mystified as to how
+the Pope had come to intervene, I folded the document and thrust it into
+my belt.
+
+Then the familiars of the Holy Office assisted me to resume my garments;
+and all was done now in utter silence, and for my own part in the same
+mental and dream-like confusion.
+
+At length the inquisitor waved a huge hand doorwards. “Ite!” he said,
+and added, whilst his raised hand seemed to perform a benedictory
+gesture--“Pax Domini sit tecum.”
+
+“Et cum spiritu tuo,” I replied mechanically, as, turning, I stumbled
+out of that dread place in the wake of the messenger who had brought the
+bull, and who went ahead to guide me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE RETURN
+
+
+Above in the blessed sunlight, which hurt my eyes--for I had not seen
+it for a full week--I found Galeotto awaiting me in a bare room; and
+scarcely was I aware of his presence than his great arms went round me
+and enclasped me so fervently that his corselet almost hurt my breast,
+and brought back as in a flash a poignant memory of another man fully as
+tall, who had held me to him one night many years ago, and whose armour,
+too, had hurt me in that embrace.
+
+Then he held me at arms' length and considered me, and his steely eyes
+were blurred and moist. He muttered something to the familiar, linked
+his arm through mine and drew me away, down passages, through doors, and
+so at last into the busy Roman street.
+
+We went in silence by ways that were well known to him but in which
+I should assuredly have lost myself, and so we came at last to a fair
+tavern--the Osteria del Sole--near the Tower of Nona.
+
+His horse was stalled here, and a servant led the way above-stairs to
+the room that he had hired.
+
+How wrong had I not been, I reflected, to announce before the
+Inquisition that I should have no regrets in leaving this world. How
+ungrateful was that speech, considering this faithful one who loved me
+for my father's sake! And was there not Bianca, who, surely--if her last
+cry, wrung from her by anguish, contained the truth--must love me for my
+own?
+
+How sweet the revulsion that now came upon me as I sank into a chair
+by the window, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that truly happy
+moment in which the grey shadow of death had been lifted from me.
+
+Servants bustled in, to spread the board with the choice meats that
+Galeotto had ordered, and great baskets of luscious fruits and flagons
+of red Puglia wine; and soon we seated ourselves to the feast.
+
+But ere I began to eat, I asked Galeotto how this miracle had been
+wrought; what magic powers he wielded that even the Holy Office must
+open its doors at his bidding. With a glance at the servants who
+attended us, he bade me eat, saying that we should talk anon. And as
+my reaction had brought a sharp hunger in its train, I fell to with the
+best will in all the world, and from broth to figs there were few words
+between us.
+
+At last, our goblets charged and the servants with-drawn, I repeated my
+inquiry.
+
+“The magic is not mine,” said Galeotto. “It is Cavalcanti's. It was he
+who obtained this bull.”
+
+And with that he set himself briefly to relate the matters that already
+are contained here concerning that transaction, but the minuter details
+of which I was later to extract from Falcone. And as he proceeded with
+his narrative I felt myself growing cold again with apprehension, just
+as I had grown cold that morning in the hands of the executioners. Until
+at last, seeing me dead-white, Galeotto checked to inquire what ailed
+me.
+
+“What--what was the price that Cavalcanti paid for this?” I inquired in
+answer.
+
+“I could not glean it, nor did I stay to insist, for there was haste.
+He assured me that the thing had been accomplished without hurt to his
+honour, life, or liberty; and with that I was content, and spurred for
+Rome.”
+
+“And you have never since thought what the price was that Cavalcanti
+might have paid?”
+
+He looked at me with troubled eyes. “I confess that in this matter the
+satisfaction of coming to your salvation has made me selfish. I have had
+thoughts for nothing else.”
+
+I groaned, and flung out my arms across the table. “He has paid such a
+price,” I said, “that a thousand times sooner would I that you had left
+me where I was.”
+
+He leaned forward, frowning darkly. “What do you mean?” he cried.
+
+And then I told him what I feared; told him how Farnese had sued
+for Bianca's hand for Cosimo; how proudly and finally Cavalcanti had
+refused; how the Duke had insisted that he would remain at Pagliano
+until my lord changed his mind; how I had learned from Giuliana the
+horrible motive that urged the Duke to press for that marriage.
+
+Lastly--“And that is the price he consented to pay,” I cried wildly.
+“His daughter--that sweet virgin--was the price! And at this hour,
+maybe, the price is paid and that detestable bargain consummated. O,
+Galeotto! Galeotto! Why was I not left to rot in that dungeon of the
+Inquisition--since I could have died happily, knowing naught of this?”
+
+“By the Blood of God, boy! Do you imply that I had knowledge? Do you
+suggest that I would have bought any life at such a price?”
+
+“No, no!” I answered. “I know that you did not--that you could
+not...” And then I leaped to my feet. “And we sit talking here, whilst
+this... whilst this... O God!” I sobbed. “We may yet be in time. To horse,
+then! Let us away!”
+
+He, too, came to his feet. “Ay, you are right. It but remains to remedy
+the evil. Come, then. Anger shall mend my spent strength. It can be
+done in three days. We will ride as none ever rode yet since the world
+began.”
+
+And we did--so desperately that by the morning of the third day,
+which was a Sunday, we were in Forli (having crossed the Apennines at
+Arcangelo) and by that same evening in Bologna. We had not slept and
+we had scarcely rested since leaving Rome. We were almost dead from
+weariness.
+
+Since such was my own case, what must have been Galeotto's? He was
+of iron, it is true. But consider that he had ridden this way at
+as desperate a pace already, to save me from the clutches of the
+Inquisition; and that, scarce rested, he was riding north again.
+Consider this, and you will not marvel that his weariness conquered him
+at last.
+
+At the inn at Bologna where we dismounted, we found old Falcone awaiting
+us. He had set out with his master to ride to Rome. But being himself
+saddle-worn at the time, he had been unable to proceed farther than
+this, and here Galeotto in his fierce impatience had left him, pursuing
+his way alone.
+
+Here, then, we found the equerry again, consumed by anxiety. He leapt
+forward to greet me, addressing me by the old title of Madonnino which
+I loved to hear from him, however much that title might otherwise arouse
+harsh and gloomy memories.
+
+Here at Bologna Galeotto announced that he would be forced to rest, and
+we slept for three hours--until night had closed in. We were shaken out
+of our slumbers by the host as he had been ordered; but even then I lay
+entranced, my limbs refusing their office, until the memory of what was
+at issue acted like a spur upon me, and caused me to fling my weariness
+aside as if it had been a cloak.
+
+Galeotto, however, was in a deplorable case. He could not move a limb.
+He was exhausted--utterly and hopelessly exhausted with fatigue and
+want of sleep. Falcone and I pulled him to his feet between us; but he
+collapsed again, unable to stand.
+
+“I am spent,” he muttered. “Give me twelve hours--twelve hours' sleep,
+Agostino, and I'll ride with you to the Devil.”
+
+I groaned and cursed in one. “Twelve hours!” I cried. “And she... I can't
+wait, Galeotto. I must ride on alone.”
+
+He lay on his back and stared up at me, and his eyes had a glassy stare.
+Then he roused himself by an effort, and raised himself upon his elbow.
+
+“That is it, boy--ride on alone. Take Falcone. Listen, there are three
+score men of mine at Pagliano who will follow you to Hell at a word that
+Falcone shall speak to them from me. About it, then, and save her. But
+wait, boy! Do no violence to Farnese, if you can help it.”
+
+“But if I can't?” I asked.
+
+“If you can't--no matter. But endeavour not to offer him any hurt! Leave
+that to me--anon when all is ripe for it. To-day it would be premature,
+and... and we... we should be... crushed by the...” His speech trailed off
+into incoherent mutterings; his eyelids dropped, and he was fast asleep
+again.
+
+Ten minutes later we were riding north again, and all that night we
+rode, along the endless Aemilian Way, pausing for no more than a draught
+of wine from time to time, and munching a loaf as we rode. We crossed
+the Po, and kept steadily on, taking fresh horses when we could, until
+towards sunset a turn in the road brought Pagliano into our view--grey
+and lichened on the crest of its smooth emerald hill.
+
+The dusk was falling and lights began to gleam from some of the castle
+windows when we brought up in the shadow of the gateway.
+
+A man-at-arms lounged out of the guardhouse to inquire our business.
+
+“Is Madonna Bianca wed yet?” was the breathless greeting I gave him.
+
+He peered at me, and then at Falcone, and he swore in some surprise.
+
+“Well, returned my lord! Madonna Bianca? The nuptials were celebrated
+to-day. The bride has gone.”
+
+“Gone?” I roared. “Gone whither, man?”
+
+“Why, to Piacenza--to my Lord Cosimo's palace there. They set out some
+three hours since.”
+
+“Where is your lord?” I asked him, flinging myself from the saddle.
+
+“Within doors, most noble.”
+
+How I found him, or by what ways I went to do so, are things that are
+effaced completely from my memory. But I know that I came upon him in
+the library. He was sitting hunched in a great chair, his face ashen,
+his eyes fevered. At sight of me--the cause, however innocent, of all
+this evil--his brows grew dark, and his eyes angry. If he had reproaches
+for me, I gave him no time to utter them, but hurled him mine.
+
+“What have you done, sir?” I demanded. “By what right did you do this
+thing? By what right did you make a sacrifice of that sweet dove?
+Did you conceive me so vile as to think that I should ever owe you
+gratitude--that I should ever do aught but abhor the deed, abhor all who
+had a hand in it, abhor the very life itself purchased for me at such a
+cost?”
+
+He cowered before my furious wrath; for I must have seemed terrific as
+I stood thundering there, my face wild, my eyes bloodshot, half mad from
+pain and rage and sleeplessness.
+
+“And do you know what you have done?” I went on. “Do you know to what
+you have sold her? Must I tell you?”
+
+And I told him, in a dozen brutal words that brought him to his feet,
+the lion in him roused at last, his eyes ablaze.
+
+“We must after them,” I urged. “We must wrest her from these beasts,
+and make a widow of her for the purpose. Galeotto's lances are below and
+they will follow me. You may bring what more you please. Come, sir--to
+horse!”
+
+He sprang forward with no answer beyond a muttered prayer that we might
+come in time.
+
+“We must,” I answered fiercely, and ran madly from the room, along
+the gallery and down the stairs, shouting and raging like a maniac,
+Cavalcanti following me.
+
+Within ten minutes, Galeotto's three score men and another score of
+those who garrisoned Pagliano for Cavalcanti were in the saddle and
+galloping hell-for-leather to Piacenza. Ahead on fresh horses went
+Falcone and I, the Lord of Pagliano spurring beside me and pestering me
+with questions as to the source of my knowledge.
+
+Our great fear was lest we should find the gates of Piacenza closed on
+our arrival. But we covered the ten miles in something under an hour,
+and the head of our little column was already through the Fodesta Gate
+when the first hour of night rang out from the Duomo, giving the signal
+for the closing of the gates.
+
+The officer in charge turned out to view so numerous a company, and
+challenged us to stand. But I flung him the answer that we were the
+Black Bands of Ser Galeotto and that we rode by order of the Duke, with
+which perforce he had to be content; for we did not stay for more and
+were too numerous to be detained by such meagre force as he commanded.
+
+Up the dark street we swept--the same street down which I had last
+ridden on that night when Gambara had opened the gates of the prison for
+me--and so we came to the square and to Cosimo's palace.
+
+All was in darkness, and the great doors were closed. A strange
+appearance this for a house to which a bride had so newly come.
+
+I dismounted as lightly as if I had not ridden lately more than just
+the ten miles from Pagliano. Indeed, I had become unconscious of all
+fatigue, entirely oblivious of the fact that for three nights now I had
+not slept--save for the three hours at Bologna.
+
+I knocked briskly on the iron-studded gates. We stood there waiting,
+Cavalcanti and Falcone afoot with me, the men on horseback still, a
+silent phalanx.
+
+I issued an order to Falcone. “Ten of them to secure our egress, the
+rest to remain here and allow none to leave the house.”
+
+The equerry stepped back to convey the command in his turn to the men,
+and the ten he summoned slipped instantly from their saddles and ranged
+themselves in the shadow of the wall.
+
+I knocked again, more imperatively, and at last the postern in the door
+was opened by an elderly serving-man.
+
+“What's this?” he asked, and thrust a lanthorn into my face.
+
+“We seek Messer Cosimo d'Anguissola,” I answered. He looked beyond me
+at the troop that lined the street, and his face became troubled. “Why,
+what is amiss?” quoth he.
+
+“Fool, I shall tell that to your master. Conduct me to him. The matter
+presses.”
+
+“Nay, then--but have you not heard? My lord was wed to-day. You would
+not have my lord disturbed at such a time?” He seemed to leer.
+
+I put my foot into his stomach, and bore him backward, flinging him
+full length upon the ground. He went over and rolled away into a corner,
+where he lay bellowing.
+
+“Silence him!” I bade the men who followed us in. “Then, half of you
+remain here to guard the stairs; the rest attend us.”
+
+The house was vast, and it remained silent, so that it did not seem that
+the clown's scream when he went over had been heard by any.
+
+Up the broad staircase we sped, guided by the light of the lanthorn,
+which Falcone had picked up--for the place was ominously in darkness.
+Cavalcanti kept pace with me, panting with rage and anxiety.
+
+At the head of the stairs we came upon a man whom I recognized for one
+of the Duke's gentlemen-in-waiting. He had been attracted, no doubt,
+by the sound of our approach; but at sight of us he turned to escape.
+Cavalcanti reached forward in time to take him by the ankle, so that he
+came down heavily upon his face.
+
+In an instant I was sitting upon him, my dagger at his throat.
+
+“A sound,” said I, “and you shall finish it in Hell!” Eyes bulging with
+fear stared at me out of his white face. He was an effeminate cur, of
+the sort that the Duke was wont to keep about him, and at once I saw
+that we should have no trouble with him.
+
+“Where is Cosimo?” I asked him shortly. “Come, man, conduct us to the
+room that holds him if you would buy your dirty life.”
+
+“He is not here,” wailed the fellow.
+
+“You lie, you hound,” said Cavalcanti, and turning to me--“Finish him,
+Agostino,” he bade me.
+
+The man under me writhed, filled now by the terror that Cavalcanti had
+so cunningly known how to inspire in him. “I swear to God that he is not
+here,” he answered, and but that fear had robbed him of his voice, he
+would have screamed it. “Gesu! I swear it--it is true!”
+
+I looked up at Cavalcanti, baffled, and sick with sudden dismay. I saw
+Cavalcanti's eye, which had grown dull, kindle anew. He stooped over the
+prostrate man.
+
+“Is the bride here--is my daughter in this house?”
+
+The fellow whimpered and did not answer until my dagger's edge was at
+his throat again. Then he suddenly screeched--“Yes!”
+
+In an instant I had dragged him to his feet again, his pretty clothes
+and daintily curled hair all crumpled, so that he looked the most
+pitiful thing in all the world.
+
+“Lead us to her chamber,” I bade him.
+
+And he obeyed as men obey when the fear of death is upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+
+An awful thought was in my mind as we went, evoked by the presence in
+such a place of one of the Duke's gentlemen; an awful question rose
+again and again to my lips, and yet I could not bring myself to utter
+it.
+
+So we went on in utter silence now, my hand upon his shoulder, clutching
+velvet doublet and flesh and bone beneath it, my dagger bare in my other
+hand.
+
+We crossed an antechamber whose heavy carpet muffled our footsteps, and
+we halted before tapestry curtains that masked a door, Here, curbing my
+fierce impatience, I paused. I signed to the five attendant soldiers to
+come no farther; then I consigned the courtier who had guided us to the
+care of Falcone, and I restrained Cavalcanti, who was shaking from head
+to foot.
+
+I raised the heavy, muffling curtain, and standing there an instant by
+the door, I heard my Bianca's voice, and her words seemed to freeze the
+very marrow in my bones.
+
+“O, my lord,” she was imploring in a choking voice, “O, my lord, have
+pity on me!”
+
+“Sweet,” came the answer, “it is I who beseech pity at your hands. Do
+you not see how I suffer? Do you not see how fiercely love of you is
+torturing me--how I burn--that you can so cruelly deny me?”
+
+It was Farnese's voice. Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the
+horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in
+a more horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or
+suspected.
+
+Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a
+hand upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand--the
+one that held the dagger--to my lips.
+
+Softly I tried the latch. I was amazed to find the door yield. And yet,
+where was the need to lock it? What interruption could he have feared in
+a house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom,
+a house that was in the hands of his own people?
+
+Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the
+threshold--Cavalcanti and I--father and lover of that sweet maid who was
+the prey of this foul Duke. We stood whilst a man might count a dozen,
+silent witnesses of that loathsome scene.
+
+The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved
+bed which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask--symbolizing
+the purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial
+altar.
+
+And to that dread sacrifice she had come--for my sake, as I was to
+learn--with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia. For that sacrifice she
+had been prepared; but not for this horror that was thrust upon her now.
+
+She crouched upon a tall-backed praying-stool, her gown not more white
+than her face, her little hands convulsively clasped to make her prayer
+to that monster who stood over her, his mottled face all flushed,
+his eyes glowing as they considered her helplessness and terror with
+horrible, pitiless greed.
+
+Thus we observed them, ourselves unperceived for some moments, for
+the praying-stool on which she crouched was placed to the left, by the
+cowled fire-place, in which a fire of scented wood was crackling, the
+scene lighted by two golden candlebranches that stood upon the table
+near the curtained window.
+
+“O, my lord!” she cried in her despair, “of your mercy leave me, and no
+man shall ever know that you sought me thus. I will be silent, my lord.
+O, if you have no pity for me, have, at least, pity for yourself. Do not
+cover yourself with the infamy of such a deed--a deed that will make you
+hateful to all men.”
+
+“Gladly at such a price would I purchase your love, my Bianca! What
+pains could daunt me? Ah, you are mine, you are mine!”
+
+As the hawk that has been long poised closes its wings and drops at
+last upon its prey, so swooped he of a sudden down upon her, caught and
+dragged her up from the praying-stool to crush her to him.
+
+She screamed in that embrace, and sought to battle, swinging round so
+that her back was fully towards us, and Farnese, swinging round also in
+that struggle, faced us and beheld us.
+
+It was as if a mask had been abruptly plucked from his face, so sudden
+and stupendous was its alteration. From flushed that it had been it grew
+livid and sickly; the unholy fires were spent in his eyes, and they grew
+dull and dead as a snake's; his jaw was loosened, and the sensual mouth
+looked unutterably foolish.
+
+For a moment I think I smiled upon him, and then Cavalcanti and I sprang
+forward, both together. As we moved, his arms loosened their hold, and
+Bianca would have fallen but that I caught her.
+
+Her terror still upon her, she glanced upwards to see what fresh enemy
+was this, and then, at sight of my face, as my arms closed about her,
+and held her safe--
+
+“Agostino!” she cried, and closed her eyes to lie panting on my breast.
+
+The Duke, fleeing like a scared rat before the anger of Cavalcanti,
+scuttled down the room to a small door in the wall that held the
+fire-place. He tore it open and sprang through, Cavalcanti following
+recklessly.
+
+There was a snarl and a cry, and the Lord of Pagliano staggered back,
+clutching one hand to his breast, and through his fingers came an ooze
+of blood. Falcone ran to him. But Cavalcanti swore like a man possessed.
+
+“It is nothing!” he snapped. “By the horns of Satan! it is nothing. A
+flesh wound, and like a fool I gave back before it. After him! In there!
+Kill! Kill!”
+
+Out came Falcone's sword with a swish, and into the dark closet beyond
+went the equerry with a roar, Cavalcanti after him.
+
+It seemed that scarce had Farnese got within that closet than,
+flattening himself against the wall, he had struck at Cavalcanti as the
+latter followed, thus driving him back and gaining all the respite he
+needed. For now they found the closet empty. There was a door beyond,
+that opened to a corridor, and this was locked. Not a doubt but that
+Farnese had gone that way. They broke that door down. I heard them at
+it what time I comforted Bianca, and soothed her, stroking her head,
+her cheek, and murmuring fondly to her until presently she was weeping
+softly.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti and Falcone found us presently when they returned.
+Farnese had escaped with one of his gentlemen who had reached him in
+time to warn him that the street was full of soldiers and the palace
+itself invaded. Thereupon the Duke had dropped from one of the windows
+to the garden, his gentleman with him, and Cavalcanti had been no more
+than in time to see them disappearing through the garden gate.
+
+The Lord of Pagliano's buff-coat was covered with blood where Pier Luigi
+had stabbed him. But he would give the matter no thought. He was like a
+tiger now. He dashed out into the antechamber, and I heard him bellowing
+orders. Someone screamed horribly, and then followed a fierce din as if
+the very place were coming down about our ears.
+
+“What is it?” cried Bianca, quivering in my arms. “Are... are they
+fighting?”
+
+“I do not think so, sweet,” I answered her. “We are in great strength.
+Have no fear.”
+
+And then Falcone came in again.
+
+“The Lord of Pagliano is raging like a madman,” he said. “We had best be
+getting away or we shall have a brush with the Captain of Justice.”
+
+Supporting Bianca, I led her from that chamber.
+
+“Where are we going?” she asked me.
+
+“Home to Pagliano,” I answered her, and with that answer comforted that
+sorely tried maid.
+
+We found the antechamber in wreckage. The great chandelier had been
+dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed and cut to ribbons, the
+arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced
+to fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and
+not a pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
+
+Thus, it seemed, childishly almost, had Cavalcanti vented his terrible
+rage, and I could well conceive what would have befallen any of the
+Duke's people upon whom in that hour he had chanced. I did not know
+then that the poor pimp who had acted as our guide was hanging from the
+balcony dead, nor that his had been the horrible scream I had heard.
+
+On the stairs we met the raging Cavalcanti reascending, the stump of his
+shivered sword in his hand.
+
+“Hasten!” he cried. “I was coming for you. Let us begone!”
+
+Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a
+heap of straw.
+
+“What is this?” I asked.
+
+“You shall see,” he roared. “Get to horse.”
+
+I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in
+front of me, my arm about her to support her.
+
+Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring
+torch. He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with
+it in a dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of
+flame. When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it
+was all a roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
+
+He stood back and laughed. “If there are any more of his brothel-mates
+in the house, they can escape as he did. They will be more fortunate
+than that one.” And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the
+balcony, so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
+
+With my hand I screened Bianca's eyes. “Do not look,” I bade her.
+
+I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body. And yet I
+reflected that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the
+foul crime that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and
+worse.
+
+Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to
+their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the
+ground floor of Cosimo's palace.
+
+We reached the Porta Fodesta, and peremptorily bade the guard to open
+for us. He answered, as became his duty, with the very words that had
+been addressed to me at that place on a night two years ago:
+
+“None passes out to-night.”
+
+In an instant a group of our men surrounded him, others made a living
+barrier before the guard-house, whilst two or three dismounted, drew the
+bolts, and dragged the great gates open.
+
+We rode on, crossing the river, and heading straight for Pagliano.
+
+For a while it was the sweetest ride that ever I rode, with my
+Bianca nestling against my breast, and responding faintly to all the
+foolishness that poured from me in that ambrosial hour.
+
+And then it seemed to me that we rode not by night but in the blazing
+light of day, along a dusty road, flanking an arid, sun-drenched stretch
+of the Campagna; and despite the aridity there must be water somewhere,
+for I heard it thundering as the Bagnanza had thundered after rain, and
+yet I knew that could not be the Bagnanza, for the Bagnanza was nowhere
+in the neighbourhood of Rome.
+
+Suddenly a great voice, and I knew it for the voice of Bianca, called me
+by name.
+
+“Agostino!”
+
+The vision was dissipated. It was night again and we were riding for
+Pagliano through the fertile lands of ultra-Po; and there was Bianca
+clutching at my breast and uttering my name in accents of fear, whilst
+the company about me was halting.
+
+“What is it?” cried Cavalcanti. “Are you hurt?” I understood. I had been
+dozing in the saddle, and I must have rolled out of it but that Bianca
+awakened me with her cry. I said so.
+
+“Body of Satan!” he swore. “To doze at such a time!”
+
+“I have scarce been out of the saddle for three days and three
+nights--this is the fourth,” I informed him. “I have had but three hours'
+sleep since we left Rome. I am done,” I admitted. “You, sir, had best
+take your daughter. She is no longer safe with me.”
+
+It was so. The fierce tension which had banished sleep from me whilst
+these things were doing, being now relaxed, left me exhausted as
+Galeotto had been at Bologna. And Galeotto had urged me to halt and rest
+there! He had begged for twelve hours! I could now thank Heaven from a
+full heart for having given me the strength and resolution to ride on,
+for those twelve hours would have made all the difference between Heaven
+and Hell.
+
+Cavalcanti himself would not take her, confessing to some weakness. For
+all that he insisted that his wound was not serious, yet he had lost
+much blood through having neglected in his rage to stanch it. So it was
+to Falcone that fell the charge of that sweet burden.
+
+The last thing I remember was Cavalcanti's laugh, as, from the high
+ground we had mounted, he stopped to survey a ruddy glare above the city
+of Piacenza, where, in a vomit of sparks, Cosimo's fine palace was being
+consumed.
+
+Then we rode down into the valley again; and as we went the thud of
+hooves grew more and more distant, and I slept in the saddle as I rode,
+a man-at-arms on either side of me, so that I remember no more of the
+doings of that strenuous night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE PENANCE
+
+
+I awakened in the chamber that had been mine at Pagliano before my
+arrest by order of the Holy Office, and I was told upon awakening that I
+had slept a night and a day and that it was eventide once more.
+
+I rose, bathed, and put on a robe of furs, and then Galeotto came to
+visit me.
+
+He had arrived at dawn, and he too had slept for some ten hours since
+his arrival, yet despite of it his air was haggard, his glance overcast
+and heavy.
+
+I greeted him joyously, conscious that we had done well. But he remained
+gloomy and unresponsive.
+
+“There is ill news,” he said at last. “Cavalcanti is in a raging fever,
+and he is sapped of strength, his body almost drained of blood. I even
+fear that he is poisoned, that Farnese's dagger was laden with some
+venom.”
+
+“O, surely... it will be well with him!” I faltered. He shook his head
+sombrely, his brows furrowed.
+
+“He must have been stark mad last night. To have raged as he did with
+such a wound upon him, and to have ridden ten miles afterwards! O, it
+was midsummer frenzy that sustained him. Here in the courtyard he reeled
+unconscious from the saddle; they found him drenched with blood from
+head to foot; and he has been unconscious ever since. I am afraid...” He
+shrugged despondently.
+
+“Do you mean that... that he may die?” I asked scarce above a whisper.
+
+“It will be a miracle if he does not. And that is one more crime to the
+score of Pier Luigi.” He said it in a tone of indescribable passion,
+shaking his clenched fist at the ceiling.
+
+The miracle did not come to pass. Two days later, in the presence of
+Galeotto, Bianca, Fra Gervasio, who had been summoned from his Piacenza
+convent to shrive the unfortunate baron, and myself, Ettore Cavalcanti
+sank quietly to rest.
+
+Whether he was dealt an envenomed wound, as Galeotto swore, or whether
+he died as a result of the awful draining of his veins, I do not know.
+
+At the end he had a moment of lucidity.
+
+“You will guard my Bianca, Agostino,” he said to me, and I swore it
+fervently, as he bade me, whilst upon her knees beyond the bed, clasping
+one of his hands that had grown white as marble, Bianca was sobbing
+brokenheartedly.
+
+Then the dying man turned his head to Galeotto. “You will see justice
+done upon that monster ere you die,” he said. “It is God's holy work.”
+
+And then his mind became clouded again by the mists of approaching
+dissolution, and he sank into a sleep, from which he never awakened.
+
+We buried him on the morrow in the Chapel of Pagliano, and on the
+next day Galeotto drew up a memorial wherein he set forth all the
+circumstances of the affair in which that gallant gentleman had met
+his end. It was a terrible indictment of Pier Luigi Farnese. Of this
+memorial he prepared two copies, and to these--as witnesses of all the
+facts therein related--Bianca, Falcone, and I appended our signatures,
+and Fra Gervasio added his own. One of these copies Galeotto dispatched
+to the Pope, the other to Ferrante Gonzaga in Milan, with a request that
+it should be submitted to the Emperor.
+
+When the memorial was signed, he rose, and taking Bianca's hand in his
+own, he swore by his every hope of salvation that ere another year was
+sped her father should be avenged together with all the other of Pier
+Luigi's victims.
+
+That same day he set out again upon his conspirator's work, whose aim
+was not only the life of Pier Luigi, but the entire shattering of
+the Pontifical sway in Parma and Piacenza. Some days later he sent me
+another score of lances--for he kept his forces scattered about the
+country whilst gradually he increased their numbers.
+
+Thereafter we waited for events at Pagliano, the drawbridge raised, and
+none entering save after due challenge.
+
+We expected an attack which never came; for Pier Luigi did not dare to
+lead an army against an Imperial fief upon such hopeless grounds as were
+his own. Possibly, too, Galeotto's memorial may have caused the Pope to
+impose restraint upon his dissolute son.
+
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, however, had the effrontery to send a messenger a
+week later to Pagliano, to demand the surrender of his wife, saying
+that she was his by God's law and man's, and threatening to enforce his
+rights by an appeal to the Vatican.
+
+That we sent the messenger empty-handed away, it is scarce necessary to
+chronicle. I was in command at Pagliano, holding it in Bianca's name,
+as Bianca's lieutenant and castellan, and I made oath that I would never
+lower the bridge to admit an enemy.
+
+But Cosimo's message aroused in us a memory that had lain dormant these
+days. She was no longer for my wooing. She was the wife of another.
+
+It came to us almost as a flash of lightning in the night; and it
+startled us by all that it revealed.
+
+“The fault of it is all mine,” said she, as we sat that evening in the
+gold-and-purple dining-room where we had supped.
+
+It was with those words that she broke the silence that had endured
+throughout the repast, until the departure of the pages and the
+seneschal who had ministered to us precisely as in the days when
+Cavalcanti had been alive.
+
+“Ah, not that, sweet!” I implored her, reaching a hand to her across the
+table.
+
+“But it is true, my dear,” she answered, covering my hand with her own.
+“If I had shown you more mercy when so contritely you confessed your
+sin, mercy would have been shown to me. I should have known from the
+sign I had that we were destined for each other; that nothing that you
+had done could alter that. I did know it, and yet...” She halted there,
+her lip tremulous.
+
+“And yet you did the only thing that you could do when your sweet purity
+was outraged by the knowledge of what I really had been.”
+
+“But you were so no more,” she said with a something of pleading in her
+voice.
+
+“It was you--the blessed sight of you that cleansed me,” I cried. “When
+love for you awoke in me, I knew love for the first time, for that other
+thing which I deemed love had none of love's holiness. Your image drove
+out all the sin from my soul. The peace which half a year of penance, of
+fasting and flagellation could not bring me, was brought me by my love
+for you when it awoke. It was as a purifying fire that turned to ashes
+all the evil of desires that my heart had held.”
+
+Her hand pressed mine. She was weeping softly.
+
+“I was an outcast,” I continued. “I was a mariner without compass,
+far from the sight of land, striving to find my way by the light
+of sentiments implanted in me from early youth. I sought salvation
+desperately--sought it in a hermitage, as I would have sought it in
+a cloister but that I had come to regard myself as unworthy of
+the cloistered life. I found it at last, in you, in the blessed
+contemplation of you. It was you who taught me the lesson that the world
+is God's world and that God is in the world as much as in the cloister.
+Such was the burden of your message that night when you appeared to me
+on Monte Orsaro.”
+
+“O, Agostino!” she cried, “and all this being so can you refrain from
+blaming me for what has come to pass? If I had but had faith in you--the
+faith in the sign which we both received--I should have known all this;
+known that if you had sinned you had been tempted and that you had
+atoned.”
+
+“I think the atonement lies here and now, in this,” I answered very
+gravely. “She was the wife of another who dragged me down. You are the
+wife of another who have lifted me up. She through sin was attainable.
+That you can never, never be, else should I have done with life in
+earnest. But do not blame yourself, sweet saint. You did as your pure
+spirit bade you; soon all would have been well but that already Messer
+Pier Luigi had seen you.”
+
+She shuddered.
+
+“You know, dear that if I submitted to wed your cousin, it was to save
+you--that such was the price imposed?”
+
+“Dear saint!” I cried.
+
+“I but mention it that upon such a score you may have no doubt of my
+motives.”
+
+“How could I doubt?” I protested.
+
+I rose, and moved down the room towards the window, behind which the
+night gleamed deepest blue. I looked out upon the gardens from which
+the black shadows of stark poplars thrust upward against the sky, and I
+thought out this thing. Then I turned to her, having as I imagined found
+the only and rather obvious solution.
+
+“There is but one thing to do, Bianca.”
+
+“And that?” her eyes were very anxious, and looked perhaps even more so
+in consequence of the pallor of her face and the lines of pain that had
+come into it in these weeks of such sore trial.
+
+“I must remove the barrier that stands between us. I must seek out
+Cosimo and kill him.”
+
+I said it without anger, without heat of any sort: a calm, cold
+statement of a step that it was necessary to take. It was a just
+measure, the only measure that could mend an unjust situation. And so,
+I think, she too viewed it. For she did not start, or cry out in horror,
+or manifest the slightest surprise at my proposal. But she shook her
+head, and smiled very wistfully.
+
+“What a folly would not that be!” she said. “How would it amend what is?
+You would be taken, and justice would be done upon you summarily. Would
+that make it any easier or any better for me? I should be alone in the
+world and entirely undefended.”
+
+“Ah, but you go too fast,” I cried. “By justice I could not suffer, I
+need but to state the case, the motive of my quarrel, the iniquitous
+wrong that was attempted against you, the odious traffic of this
+marriage, and all men would applaud my act. None would dare do me a
+hurt.”
+
+“You are too generous in your faith in man,” she said. “Who would
+believe your claims?”
+
+“The courts,” I said.
+
+“The courts of a State in which Pier Luigi governs?”
+
+“But I have witnesses of the facts.”
+
+“Those witnesses would never be allowed to testify. Your protests would
+be smothered. And how would your case really look?” she cried. “The
+world would conceive that the lover of Bianca de' Cavalcanti had killed
+her husband that he might take her for his own. What could you hope for,
+against such a charge as that? Men might even remember that other affair
+of Fifanti's and even the populace, which may be said to have saved you
+erstwhile, might veer round and change from the opinion which it has
+ever held. They would say that one who has done such a thing once may do
+it twice; that...”
+
+“O, for pity's sake, stop! Have mercy!” I cried, flinging out my arms
+towards her. And mercifully she ceased, perceiving that she had said
+enough.
+
+I turned to the window again, and pressed my brow against the cool
+glass. She was right. That acute mind of hers had pierced straight to
+the very core of this matter. To do the thing that had been in my mind
+would be not only to destroy myself, but to defile her; for upon her
+would recoil a portion of the odium that must be flung at me. And--as
+she said--what then must be her position? They would even have a case
+upon which to drag her from these walls of Pagliano. She would be a
+victim of the civil courts; she might, at Pier Luigi's instigation,
+be proceeded against as my accomplice in what would be accounted a
+dastardly murder for the basest of motives.
+
+I turned to her again.
+
+“You are right,” I said. “I see that you are right. Just as I was right
+when I said that my atonement lies here and now. The penance for which
+I have cried out so long is imposed at last. It is as just as it is
+cruelly apt.”
+
+I came slowly back to the table, and stood facing her across it. She
+looking up at me with very piteous eyes.
+
+“Bianca, I must go hence,” I said. “That, too, is clear.”
+
+Her lips parted; her eyes dilated; her face, if anything, grew paler.
+
+“O, no, no!” she cried piteously.
+
+“It must be,” I said. “How can I remain? Cosimo may appeal for justice
+against me, claiming that I hold his wife in duress--and justice will be
+done.”
+
+“But can you not resist? Pagliano is strong and well-manned. The Black
+Bands are very faithful men, and they will stand by you to the end.”
+
+“And the world?” I cried. “What will the world say of you? It is you
+yourself have made me see it. Shall your name be dragged in the foul
+mire of scandal? The wife of Cosimo d'Anguissola a runagate with her
+husband's cousin? Shall the world say that?”
+
+She moaned, and covered her face with her hands. Then she controlled
+herself again, and looked at me almost fiercely.
+
+“Do you care so much for what men say?”
+
+“I am thinking of you.”
+
+“Then think of me to better purpose, my Agostino. Consider that we are
+confronted by two evils, and that the choice of the lesser is forced
+upon us. If you go, I am all unprotected, and... and... the harm is done
+already.”
+
+Long I looked at her with such a yearning to take her in my arms and
+comfort her! And I had the knowledge that if I remained, daily must I
+experience this yearning which must daily grow crueller and more fierce
+from the very restraint I must impose upon it. And then that rearing of
+mine, all drenched in sanctity misunderstood, came to my help, and made
+me see in this an added burden to my penance, a burden which I must
+accept if I would win to ultimate grace.
+
+And so I consented to remain, and I parted from her with no more than
+a kiss bestowed upon her finger-tips, and went to pray for patience and
+strength to bear my heavy cross and so win to my ultimate reward, be it
+in this world or the next.
+
+In the morning came news by a messenger from Galeotto--news of one more
+foul crime that the Duke had committed on that awful night when we had
+rescued Bianca from his evil claws. The unfortunate Giuliana had been
+found dead in her bed upon the following morning, and the popular voice
+said that the Duke had strangled her.
+
+Of that rumour I subsequently had confirmation. It would appear that
+maddened with rage at the loss of his prey, that ravening wolf had
+looked about to discover who might have betrayed his purpose and
+procured that intervention. He bethought him of Giuliana. Had not Cosimo
+seen her in intimate talk with me on the morning of my arrest, and would
+he not have reported it to his master?
+
+So to the handsome mansion in which he housed her, and to which at all
+hours he had access, the Duke went instantly. He must have taxed
+her with it; and knowing her nature, I can imagine that she not only
+admitted that his thwarting was due to her, but admitted it mockingly,
+exultingly, jeering as only a jealous woman can jeer, until in his rage
+he seized her by the throat.
+
+How bitterly must she not have repented that she had not kept a better
+guard upon her tongue, during those moments of her agony, brief in
+themselves, yet horribly long to her, until her poor wanton spirit went
+forth from the weak clay that she had loved too well.
+
+When I heard of the end of that unfortunate, all my bitterness against
+her went out of me, and in my heart I set myself to find excuses for
+her. Witty and cultured in much; in much else she had been as stupid as
+the dumb beast. She was irreligious as were many because what she saw
+of religion did not inspire respect in her, and whilst one of her lovers
+had been a prince of the Church another had been the son of the Pope.
+She was by nature sensuous, and her sensuousness stifled in her all
+perception of right or wrong.
+
+I like to think that her death was brought about as the result of a good
+deed--so easily might it have been the consequence of an evil one. And I
+trust that that deed--good in itself, whatever the sources from which
+it may have sprung--may have counted in her favour and weighed in the
+balance against the sins that were largely of her nature.
+
+I bethought me of Fra Gervasio's words to me: “Who that knows all that
+goes to the making of a sin shall ever dare to blame a sinner?” He had
+applied those words to my own case where Giuliana was concerned. But do
+they not apply equally to Giuliana? Do they not apply to every sinner,
+when all is said?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. BLOOD
+
+
+The words that passed between Bianca and me that evening in the
+dining-room express all that can be said of our attitude to each other
+during the months that followed. Daily we met, and the things which our
+lips no longer dared to utter, our eyes expressed.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks, and these accumulated into months. The
+autumn faded from gold to grey, and the winter came and laid the earth
+to sleep, and then followed spring to awaken it once more.
+
+None troubled us at Pagliano, and we began with some justice to consider
+ourselves secure. Galeotto's memorial, not a doubt, had stirred up
+matters; and Pier Luigi would be under orders from his father not to add
+one more scandal to the many of his life by venturing to disturb Madonna
+Bianca in her stronghold at Pagliano.
+
+From time to time we were visited by Galeotto. It was well for him that
+fatigue had overwhelmed him that day at Bologna, and so hindered him
+from taking a hand with us in the doings of that hideous night, else he
+might no longer have freedom to roam the State unchallenged as he did.
+
+He told us of the new citadel the Duke was building in Piacenza, and
+how for the purpose he was pulling down houses relentlessly to obtain
+material and to clear himself a space, and how, further, he was widening
+and strengthening the walls of the city.
+
+“But I doubt,” he said one morning in that spring, “if he will live to
+see the work completed. For we are resolved at last. There is no
+need for an armed rising. Five score of my lances will be all that is
+necessary. We are planning a surprise, and Ferrante Gonzaga is to be at
+hand to support us with Imperial troops and to receive the State as the
+Emperor's vicegerent when the hour strikes. It will strike soon,” he
+added, “and this, too, shall be paid for with the rest.” And he touched
+the black mourning gown that Bianca wore.
+
+He rode away again that day, and he went north for a last interview with
+the Emperor's Lieutenant, but promising to return before the blow was
+struck to give me the opportunity to bear my share in it.
+
+Spring turned to summer, and we waited, wandering in the gardens
+together; reading together, playing at bowls or tennis, though the
+latter game was not considered one for women, and sometimes exercising
+the men-at-arms in the great inner bailey where they lodged. Twice we
+rode out ahawking, accompanied by a strong escort, and returned without
+mishap, though I would not consent to a third excursion, lest a rumour
+having gone abroad, our enemies should lie in wait to trap us. I grew
+strangely fearful of losing her who did not and who never might belong
+to me.
+
+And all this time my penance, as I regarded it, grew daily heavier to
+bear. Long since I had ceased so much as to kiss her finger-tips. But
+to kiss the very air she breathed was fraught with danger to my peace
+of mind. And then one evening, as we paced the garden together, I had
+a moment's madness, a moment in which my yearnings would no longer be
+repressed. Without warning I swung about, caught her in my arms, and
+crushed her to me.
+
+I saw the sudden flicker of her eyelids, the one swift upward glance of
+her blue eyes, and I beheld in them a yearning akin to my own, but also
+a something of fear that gave me pause.
+
+I put her from me. I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown.
+
+“Forgive me, sweet.” I besought her very humbly.
+
+“My poor Agostino,” was all she answered me, what time her fingers
+fluttered gently over my sable hair.
+
+Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
+save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
+
+At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary
+of her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a
+Thursday--came Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and
+that night he was gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve
+months past.
+
+When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
+transpired.
+
+“It is the hour,” he said very pregnantly. “His sands are swiftly
+running out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone
+shall remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made
+upon Pagliano, which is not likely.”
+
+And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
+occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of
+the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving
+him the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to
+answer for his sins.
+
+Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties,
+for which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no
+more. Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush
+the barons, Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no
+longer needed. Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and
+their very houses were being pulled down to supply material for the new
+citadel, the Duke recking little who might thus be left without a roof
+over his head.
+
+“He has gone mad,” said Galeotto, and laughed. “Pier Luigi could not
+more effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends. The
+nobles he alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed
+against him and weary of his rapine. It is so bad with him that of late
+he has remained shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as
+to avoid the sight of the starving faces of the poor and the general
+ruin that he is making of that fair city. He has given out that he is
+ill. A little blood-letting will cure all his ills for ever.”
+
+Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them
+their orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as
+countryfolk, but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they
+were severally to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the
+morning of Saturday at the time and place he indicated. They went, and
+that afternoon we followed.
+
+“You will come back to me, Agostino?” Bianca said to me at parting.
+
+“I will come back,” I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very
+heavy.
+
+But as we rode the prospect of the thing to do warmed me a little, and
+I shook off my melancholy. Optimism coloured the world for me all of the
+rosy hue of promise.
+
+We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads
+to the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a
+dozen assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini
+of Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of
+Pier Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the
+house of Confalonieri.
+
+We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which
+reflected as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was
+charged, when suddenly Galeotto spun a coin upon the middle of it. It
+fell flat presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which
+the abbreviation PLAC was a part.
+
+Galeotto set his finger to it. “A year ago I warned him,” said he, “that
+his fate was written there in that shortened word. To-morrow I shall
+read the riddle for him.”
+
+I did not understand the allusion and said so.
+
+“Why,” he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also
+been knit, “first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his
+doom; and then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this
+undertaking--Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri.”
+
+“You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in
+this affair,” said I.
+
+He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
+
+And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere,
+for it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways,
+according to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the
+writing.
+
+Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
+
+Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were
+to assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at
+the Duke's side. He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an
+inspection of the new fortress that was building. It appeared that once
+more there was talk between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking
+service under him, and Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward
+his plans. He was, I think, the most self-contained and patient man that
+it would have been possible to find for such an undertaking.
+
+In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback
+attended the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming
+corselets and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went
+afoot to hedge his excellency.
+
+The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed
+their caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air
+was sullen and in the main they were silent, though here and there some
+knave, with the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs,
+raised a feeble shout of “Duca!”
+
+The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
+crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome
+in itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for
+the fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were
+great brown stains of suffering.
+
+I flattened myself against a wall in the shadow of a doorway lest he
+should see me, for my height made me an easy mark in that crowd. But he
+looked neither to right nor to left as he rode. Indeed, it was said
+that he could no longer bear to meet the glances of the people he had
+so grossly abused and outraged with deeds that are elsewhere abundantly
+related, and with which I need not turn your stomachs here.
+
+When they had gone by, I followed slowly in their wake towards the
+castle. As I turned out of the fine road that Gambara had built, I
+was joined by the brothers Pallavicini, a pair of resolute, grizzled
+gentlemen, the elder of whom, as you will remember, was slightly lame.
+With an odd sense of fitness they had dressed themselves in black. They
+were accompanied by half a dozen of Galeotto's men, but these bore no
+device by which they could be identified. We exchanged greetings, and
+stepped out together across the open space of the Piazza della Citadella
+towards the fortress.
+
+We crossed the drawbridge, and entered unchallenged by the guard. People
+were wont to come and go, and to approach the Duke it was necessary
+to pass the guard in the ante-chamber above, whose business it was to
+question all comers.
+
+Moreover the only guard set consisted of a couple of Swiss who lounged
+in the gateway, the garrison being all at dinner, a circumstance upon
+which Galeotto had calculated in appointing noon as the hour for the
+striking of the blow.
+
+We crossed the quadrangle, and passing under a second archway came
+into the inner bailey as we had been bidden. Here we were met by
+Confalonieri, who also had half a dozen men with him. He greeted us, and
+issued his orders sharply.
+
+“You, Ser Agostino, are to come with us, whilst you others are to remain
+here until Messer Landi arrives with the remainder of our forces. He
+should have a score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard
+when they enter. The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged
+as the signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge
+and overpower the Swiss who should still be at table. Landi has his
+orders and knows how to act.”
+
+The Pallavicini briefly spoke their assents, and Confalonieri, taking
+me by the arm, led me quickly above-stairs, his half-dozen men following
+close upon our heels. Upon none was there any sign of armour. But every
+man wore a shirt of mail under his doublet or jerkin.
+
+We entered the ante-chamber--a fine, lofty apartment, richly hung and
+richly furnished. It was empty of courtiers, for all were gone to dine
+with the captain of the guard, who had been married upon that very
+morning and was giving a banquet in honour of the event, as Galeotto had
+informed himself when he appointed the day.
+
+Over by a window sat four of the Swiss--the entire guard--about a table
+playing at dice, their lances deposited in an angle of the wall.
+
+Watching their game--for which he had lingered after accompanying the
+Duke thus far--stood the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Galeotto. He
+turned as we entered, and gave us an indifferent glance as if we were of
+no interest to him, then returned his attention to the dicers.
+
+One or two of the Swiss looked up at us casually. The dice rattled
+merrily, and there came from the players little splutters of laughter
+and deep guttural, German oaths.
+
+At the room's far end, by the curtains that masked the door of the
+chamber where Farnese sat at dinner, stood an usher in black velvet,
+staff in hand, who took no more interest in us than did the Swiss.
+
+We sauntered over to the dicers' table, and in placing ourselves the
+better to watch their game, we so contrived that we entirely hemmed them
+into the embrasure, whilst Confalonieri himself stood with his back to
+the pikes, an effective barrier between the men and their weapons.
+
+We remained thus for some moments whilst the game went on, and we
+laughed with the winners and swore with the losers, as if our hearts
+were entirely in the dicing and we had not another thought in the world.
+
+Suddenly a pistol-shot crackled below, and startled the Swiss, who
+looked at one another. One burly fellow whom they named Hubli held the
+dice-box poised for a throw that was never made.
+
+Across the courtyard below men were running with drawn swords, shouting
+as they ran, and hurled themselves through the doorway leading to the
+quarters where the Swiss were at table. This the guards saw through the
+open window, and they stared, muttering German oaths to express their
+deep bewilderment.
+
+And then there came a creak of winches and a grinding of chains to
+inform us that the bridge was being taken up. At last those four
+lanzknechte looked at us.
+
+“Beim blute Gottes!” swore Hubli. “Was giebt es?”
+
+Our set faces, showing no faintest trace of surprise, quickened their
+alarm, and this became flavoured by suspicion when they perceived at
+last how closely we pressed about them.
+
+“Continue your game,” said Confalonieri quietly, “it will be best for
+you.”
+
+The great blonde fellow Hubli flung down the dice-box and heaved himself
+up truculently to face the speaker who stood between him and the lances.
+Instantly Confalonieri stabbed him, and he sank back into his chair with
+a cry, intensest surprise in his blue eyes, so sudden and unlooked-for
+had the action been.
+
+Galeotto had already left the group about the table, and with a blow of
+his great hand he felled the usher who sought to bar his passage to
+the Duke's chamber. He tore down the curtains, and he was wrapping
+and entangling the fellow in the folds of them when I came to his aid
+followed by Confalonieri, whose six men remained to hold the three sound
+and the one wounded Swiss in check.
+
+And now from below there rose such a din of steel on steel, of shouts
+and screams and curses, that it behoved us to make haste.
+
+Bidding us follow him, Galeotto flung open the door. At table sat
+Farnese with two of his gentlemen, one of whom was the Marquis
+Sforza-Fogliani, the other a doctor of canon law named Copallati.
+
+Alarm was already written on their faces. At sight of Galeotto--“Ah! You
+are still here!” cried Farnese. “What is taking place below? Have the
+Swiss fallen to fighting among themselves?”
+
+Galeotto returned no answer, but advanced slowly into the room; and
+now Farnese's eyes went past him and fastened upon me, and I saw
+them suddenly dilate; beyond me they went and met the cold glance of
+Confalonieri, that other gentleman he had so grievously wronged and whom
+he had stripped of the last rag of his possessions and his rights. The
+sun coming through the window caught the steel that Confalonieri still
+carried in his hands; its glint drew the eyes of the Duke, and he must
+have seen that the baron's sleeve was bloody.
+
+He rose, leaning heavily upon the table.
+
+“What does this mean?” he demanded in a quavering voice, and his face
+had turned grey with apprehension.
+
+“It means,” Galeotto answered him, firmly and coldly, “that your rule
+in Piacenza is at an end, that the Pontifical sway is broken in these
+States, and that beyond the Po Ferrante Gonzaga waits with an army to
+take possession here in the Emperor's name. Finally, my Lord Duke, it
+means that the Devil's patience is to be rewarded, and that he is at
+last to have you who have so faithfully served him upon earth.”
+
+Farnese made a gurgling sound and put a jewelled hand to his throat
+as if he choked. He was all in green velvet, and every button of
+his doublet was a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its
+incongruity seemed to heighten the tragedy of the moment.
+
+Of his gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed
+seat, clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white
+as marble. In like case were the two attendant servants, who hung
+motionless by the buffet. But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for
+all his effeminate appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand to his
+weapons.
+
+Instantly Confalonieri's sword flashed from its sheath. He had passed
+his dagger into his left hand.
+
+“On your life, my Lord Marquis, do not meddle here,” he warned him in a
+voice that was like a trumpet-call.
+
+And before that ferocious aspect and those naked weapons Sforza-Fogliani
+stood checked and intimidated.
+
+I too had drawn my poniard, determined that Farnese should fall to my
+steel in settlement of the score that lay between us. He saw the act,
+and if possible his fears were increased, for he knew that the wrongs he
+had done me were personal matters between us for which it was not likely
+I should prove forgiving.
+
+“Mercy!” he gasped, and held out supplicating hands to Galeotto.
+
+“Mercy?” I echoed, and laughed fiercely. “What mercy would you have
+shown me against whom you set the Holy Office, but that you could sell
+my life at a price that was merciless? What mercy would you have shown
+to the daughter of Cavalcanti when she lay in your foul power? What
+mercy did you show her father who died by your hand? What mercy did you
+show the unfortunate Giuliana whom you strangled in her bed? What mercy
+did you ever show to any that you dare ask now for mercy?”
+
+He looked at me with dazed eyes, and from me to Galeotto. He shuddered
+and turned a greenish hue. His knees were loosened by terror, and he
+sank back into the chair from which he had risen.
+
+“At least... at least,” he gasped, “let me have a priest to shrive me. Do
+not... do not let me die with all my sins upon me!”
+
+In that moment there came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly
+moving feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries. The sound
+heartened him. He conceived that someone came to his assistance. He
+raised his voice in a desperate screech:
+
+“To me! To me! Help!”
+
+As he shouted I sprang towards him, to find my passage suddenly barred
+by Galeotto's arm. He shot it out, and my breast came against it
+as against a rod of iron. It threw me out of balance, and ere I had
+recovered it had thrust me back again.
+
+“Back there!” said Galeotto's brazen voice. “This affair is mine. Mine
+are the older wrongs and the greater.”
+
+With that he stepped behind the Duke's chair, and Farnese in a fresh
+spurt of panic came to his feet. Galeotto locked an arm about his neck
+and pulled his head back. Into his ear he muttered words that I could
+not overhear, but it was matter that stilled Farnese's last struggle.
+Only the Duke's eyes moved, rolling in his head as he sought to look
+upon the face of the man who spoke to him. And in that moment Galeotto
+wrenched his victim's head still farther back, laying entirely bare the
+long brown throat, across which he swiftly drew his dagger.
+
+Copallati screamed and covered his face with his hands; Sforza-Fogliani,
+white to the lips, looked on like a man entranced.
+
+There was a screech from Farnese that ended in a gurgle, and suddenly
+the blood spurted from his neck as from a fountain. Galeotto let him go.
+He dropped to his chair and fell forward against the table, drenching it
+in blood. Thence he went over sideways and toppled to the floor, where
+he lay twitching, a huddle of arms and legs, the head lolling sideways,
+the eyes vitreous, and blood, blood, blood all about him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE OVERTHROW
+
+
+The sight turned me almost physically sick.
+
+I faced about, and sprang from the room out into the ante-chamber, where
+a battle was in progress. Some three or four of the Duke's gentlemen
+and a couple of Swiss had come to attempt a rescue. They had compelled
+Galeotto's six men to draw and defend themselves, the odds being
+suddenly all against them. Into that medley I went with drawn sword,
+hacking and cutting madly, giving knocks and taking them, glad of the
+excitement of it; glad of anything that would shut out from my mind the
+horror of the scene I had witnessed.
+
+Presently Confalonieri came out to take a hand, leaving Galeotto
+on guard within, and in a few minutes we had made an end of that
+resistance--the last splutter of resistance within those walls.
+
+Beyond some cuts and scratches that some of us had taken, not a man
+of ours was missing, whilst of the Duke's followers not a single one
+remained alive in that ante-chamber. The place was a shambles. Hangings
+that had been clutched had been torn from the walls; a great mirror was
+cracked from top to bottom; tables were overset and wrecked; chairs were
+splintered; and hardly a pane of glass remained in any of the windows.
+And everywhere there was blood, everywhere dead men.
+
+Up the stairs came trooping now our assembled forces led by Landi
+and the Pallavicini. Below all was quiet. The Swiss garrison taken by
+surprise at table, as was planned, had been disarmed and all were safe
+and impotent under lock and bolt. The guards at the gate had been cut
+down, and we were entirely masters of the place.
+
+Sforza-Fogliani, Copallati, and the two servants were fetched from the
+Duke's chamber and taken away to be locked up in another room until the
+business should be ended. For after all, it was but begun.
+
+In the town the alarm-bell was ringing from the tower of the Communal
+Palace, and at the sound I saw Galeotto's eyes kindling. He took
+command, none disputing it him, and under his orders men went briskly to
+turn the cannon of the fortress upon the square, that an attack might be
+repulsed if it were attempted. And three salvoes were fired, to notify
+Ferrante Gonzaga where he waited that the castle was in the hands of the
+conspirators and Pier Luigi slain.
+
+Meanwhile we had returned with Galeotto to the room where the Duke
+had died, and where his body still lay, huddled as it had fallen. The
+windows of this chamber were set in the outer wall of the fortress,
+immediately above the gates and commanding a view of the square. We were
+six--Confalonieri, Landi, the two Pallavicini, Galeotto, and myself,
+besides a slight fellow named Malvicini, who had been an officer of
+light-horse in the Duke's service, but who had taken a hand in betraying
+him.
+
+In the square there was by now a seething, excited mob through which
+a little army of perhaps a thousand men of the town militia with their
+captain, da Terni, riding at their head, was forcing its way. And they
+were shouting “Duca!” and crying out that the castle had been seized by
+Spaniards--by which they meant the Emperor's troops.
+
+Galeotto dragged a chair to the window, and standing upon it, showed
+himself to the people.
+
+“Disperse!” he shouted to them. “To your homes! The Duke is dead!”
+
+But his voice could not surmount that raging din, above which continued
+to ring the cry of “Duca! Duca!”
+
+“Let me show them their Duca,” said a voice. It was Malvicini's.
+
+He had torn down a curtain-rope, and had attached an end of it to one
+of the dead man's legs. Thus he dragged the body forward towards the
+window. The other end of the rope he now knotted very firmly to a
+mullion. Then he took the body up in his arms, whilst Galeotto stood
+aside to make way for him, and staggering under his ghastly burden,
+Malvicini reached the window, and heaved it over the sill.
+
+It fell the length of the rope and there was arrested with a jerk
+to hang head downwards, spread-eagle against the brown wall; and the
+diamond buttons in his green velvet doublet sparkled merrily in the
+sunshine.
+
+At that sight a great silence swept across the multitude, and availing
+himself of this, Galeotto again addressed those Piacentini.
+
+“To your homes,” he cried to them, “and arm yourselves to defend the
+State from your enemies if the need should arise. There hangs the
+Duke--dead. He has been slain to liberate our country from unjust
+oppression.”
+
+Still, it seemed, they did not hear him; for though to us they appeared
+to be almost silent, yet there was a rustle and stir amongst them, which
+must have deafened each to what was being announced.
+
+They renewed their cries of “Duca!” of “Spaniards!” and “To arms!”
+
+“A curse on your 'Spaniards!'” cried Malvicini. “Here! Take your Duke.
+Look at him, and understand.” And he slashed the rope across, so that
+the body plunged down into the castle ditch.
+
+A few of the foremost of the crowd ran forward and scrambled down into
+the ditch to view the body, and from them the rumour of the truth ran
+like a ripple over water through that mob, so that in the twinkling of
+an eye there was no man in that vast concourse--and all Piacenza seemed
+by now to be packed into the square--but knew that Pier Luigi Farnese
+was dead.
+
+A sudden hush fell. There were no more cries of “Duca!” They stood
+silent, and not a doubt but that in the breasts of the majority surged
+a great relief. Even the militia ceased to advance. If the Duke was dead
+there was nothing left to do.
+
+Again Galeotto spoke to them, and this time his words were caught by
+those in the ditch immediately below us, and from them they were passed
+on, and suddenly a great cry went up--a shout of relief, a paean of joy.
+If Farnese was dead, and well dead, they could, at last, express the
+thing that was in their hearts.
+
+And now at the far end of the square a glint of armour appeared; a troop
+of horse emerged, and began slowly to press forward through the crowd,
+driving it back on either side, but very gently. They came three
+abreast, and there were six score of them, and from their lance-heads
+fluttered bannerols showing a sable bar on an argent field. They were
+Galeotto's free company, headed by one of his lieutenants. Beyond the Po
+they too had been awaiting the salvo of artillery that should be their
+signal to advance.
+
+When their identity was understood, and when the crowd had perceived
+that they rode to support the holders of the castle, they were greeted
+with lusty cheers, in which presently even the militia joined, for these
+last were Piacentini and no Swiss hireling soldiers of the Duke's.
+
+The drawbridge was let down, and the company thundered over it to draw
+up in the courtyard under the eyes of Galeotto. He issued his orders
+once more to his companions. Then calling for horses for himself and for
+me, and bidding a score of lances to detach themselves to ride with us,
+we quitted the fortress.
+
+We pressed through the clamant multitude until we had reached the
+middle of the square. Here Galeotto drew rein and, raising his hand for
+silence, informed the people once more that the Duke had been done to
+death by the nobles of Piacenza, thus to avenge alike their own and the
+people's wrongs, and to free them from unjust oppression and tyranny.
+
+They cheered him when he had done, and the cry now was “Piacenza!
+Piacenza!”
+
+When they had fallen silent again--“I would have you remember,” he
+cried, “that Pier Luigi was the Pontiff's son, and that the Pontiff will
+make haste to avenge his death and to re-establish here in Piacenza the
+Farnese sway. So that all that we have done this day may go for naught
+unless we take our measures.”
+
+The silence deepened.
+
+“But you have been served by men who have the interest of the State at
+heart; and more has been done to serve you than the mere slaying of Pier
+Luigi Farnese. Our plans are made, and we but wait to know is it your
+will that the State should incorporate itself as of old with that of
+Milan, and place itself under the protection of the Emperor, who will
+appoint you fellow-countrymen for rulers, and will govern you wisely and
+justly, abolishing extortion and oppression?”
+
+A thunder of assent was his answer. “Cesare! Cesare!” was now the cry,
+and caps were tossed into the air.
+
+“Then go arm yourselves and repair to the Commune, and there make known
+your will to the Anziani and councillors, and see that it is given
+effect by them. The Emperor's Lieutenant is at your gates. I ride to
+surrender to him the city in your name, and before nightfall he will be
+here to protect you from any onslaught of the Pontificals.”
+
+With that he pushed on, the mob streaming along with us, intent upon
+going there and then to do the thing that Galeotto advised. And by
+now they had discovered Galeotto's name, and they were shouting it in
+acclamation of him, and at the sound he smiled, though his eyes seemed
+very wistful.
+
+He leaned over to me, and gripped my hand where it lay on the saddle-bow
+clutching the reins.
+
+“Thus is Giovanni d'Anguissola at last avenged!” he said to me in a deep
+voice that thrilled me.
+
+“I would that he were here to know,” I answered.
+
+And again Galeotto's eyes grew wistful as they looked at me.
+
+We won out of the town at last, and when we came to the high ground
+beyond the river, we saw in the plain below phalanx upon phalanx of a
+great army. It was Ferrante Gonzaga's Imperial force.
+
+Galeotto pointed to it. “That is my goal,” he said. “You had best ride
+on to Pagliano with these lances. You may need them there. I had hoped
+that Cosimo would have been found in the castle with Pier Luigi. His
+absence makes me uneasy. Away with you, then. You shall have news of me
+within three days.”
+
+We embraced, on horseback as we were. Then he wheeled his charger and
+went down the steep ground, riding hard for Ferrante's army, whilst
+we pursued our way, and came some two hours later without mishap to
+Pagliano.
+
+I found Bianca awaiting me in the gallery above the courtyard, drawn
+thither by the sounds of our approach.
+
+“Dear Agostino, I have been so fearful for you,” was her greeting when I
+had leapt up the staircase to take her hand.
+
+I led her to the marble seat she had occupied on that night, two years
+ago, when first we had spoken of our visions. Briefly I gave her the
+news of what had befallen in Piacenza.
+
+When I had done, she sighed and looked at me.
+
+“It brings us no nearer to each other,” she said.
+
+“Nay, now--this much nearer, at least, that the Imperial decree will
+return me the lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina, dispossessing the
+usurper. Thus I shall have something to offer you, my Bianca.”
+
+She smiled at me very sadly, almost reproachfully.
+
+“Foolish,” said she. “What matter the possessions that it may be yours
+to cast into my lap? Is that what we wait for, Agostino? Is there not
+Pagliano for you? Would not that, at need, be lordship enough?”
+
+“The meanest cottage of the countryside were lordship enough so that you
+shared it,” I answered passionately, as many in like case have answered
+before and since.
+
+“You see, then, that you are wrong to attach importance to so slight
+a thing as this Imperial decree where you and I are concerned. Can an
+Imperial decree annul my marriage?”
+
+“For that a papal bull would be necessary.”
+
+“And how is a papal bull to be obtained?”
+
+“It is not for us,” I admitted miserably.
+
+“I have been wicked,” she said, her eyes upon the ground, a faint
+colour stirring in her cheeks. “I have prayed that the usurper might be
+dispossessed of his rights in me. I have prayed that when the attack
+was made and revolt was carried into the Citadel of Piacenza, Cosimo
+d'Anguissola might stand at his usual post beside the Duke and might
+fall with him. Surely justice demanded it!” she cried out. “God's
+justice, as well as man's. His act in marrying me was a defilement
+of one of the holiest of sacraments, and for that he should surely be
+punished and struck down!”
+
+I went upon my knees to her. “Dear love!” I cried. “See, I have you
+daily in my sight. Let me not be ungrateful for so much.”
+
+She took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes, saying no word.
+Then she leaned forward, and very gently touched my forehead with her
+lips.
+
+“God pity us a little, Agostino,” she murmured, her eyes shining with
+unshed tears.
+
+“The fault is mine--all mine!” I denounced myself. “We are being visited
+with my sins. When I can take you for my own--if that blessed day
+should ever dawn--I shall know that I have attained to pardon, that I am
+cleansed and worthy of you at last.”
+
+She rose and I escorted her within; then went to my own chamber to bathe
+and rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CITATION
+
+
+We were breaking our fast upon the following morning when Falcone sent
+word to me by one of the pages that a considerable force was advancing
+towards us from the south.
+
+I rose, somewhat uneasy. Yet I reflected that it was possible that,
+news of the revolt in Piacenza having reached Parma, this was an army
+of Pontificals moving thence upon the rebellious city. But in that case,
+what should they be doing this side of Po?
+
+An hour later, from the battlements where we paced side by side--Bianca
+and I--we were able to estimate this force and we fixed its strength
+at five score lances. Soon we could make out the device upon their
+bannerols--a boar's head azure upon an argent field--my own device, that
+of the Anguissola of Mondolfo; and instantly I knew them for Cosimo's
+men.
+
+On the lower parapet six culverins had been dragged into position under
+the supervision of Falcone--who was still with us at Pagliano. These
+pieces stood loaded and manned by the soldiers to whom I had assigned
+the office of engineers.
+
+Thus we waited until the little army came to a halt about a quarter of a
+mile away, and a trumpeter with a flag of truce rode forward accompanied
+by a knight armed cap-a-pie, his beaver down.
+
+The herald wound a challenge; and it was answered from the postern by a
+man-at-arms, whereupon the herald delivered his message.
+
+“In the name of our Holy Father and Lord, Paul III, we summon
+Agostino d'Anguissola here to confer with the High and Mighty Cosimo
+d'Anguissola, Tyrant of Mondolfo and Carmina.”
+
+Three minutes later, to their infinite surprise, the bridge thudded down
+to span the ditch, and I walked out upon it with Bianca at my side.
+
+“Will the Lord Cosimo come within to deliver his message?” I demanded.
+
+The Lord Cosimo would not, fearing a trap.
+
+“Will he meet us here upon the bridge, divesting himself first of his
+weapons? Myself I am unarmed.”
+
+The herald conveyed the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he
+had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the
+first sign of a sortie.
+
+I laughed. “You are a paltry coward, Cosimo, when all is said,” I
+shouted. “Do you not see that had I planned to take you, I need resort
+to no subterfuge? I have,” I added--though untruthfully--“twice your
+number of lances under arms, and by now I could have flung them across
+the bridge and taken you under the very eyes of your own men. You were
+rash to venture so far. But if you will not venture farther, at least
+send me your herald.”
+
+At that he got down from his horse, delivered up sword and dagger to his
+single attendant, received from the man a parchment, and came towards
+us, opening his vizor as he advanced. Midway upon the bridge we met. His
+lips curled in a smile of scorn.
+
+“Greetings, my strolling saint,” he said. “Through all your vagaries you
+are at least consistent in that you ever engage your neighbour's wife to
+bear you company in your wanderings.”
+
+I went hot and cold, red and white by turns. With difficulty I
+controlled myself under that taunt--the cruellest he could have flung at
+me in Bianca's hearing.
+
+“Your business here?” I snarled.
+
+He held out the parchment, his eyes watching me intently, so that they
+never once strayed to Bianca.
+
+“Read, St. Mountebank,” he bade me.
+
+I took the paper, but before I lowered my eyes to it, I gave him
+warning.
+
+“If on your part you attempt the slightest treachery,” I said, “you
+shall be repaid in kind. My men are at the winches, and they have my
+orders that at the first treacherous movement on your part they are to
+take up the bridge. You will see that you could not reach the end of it
+in time to save yourself.”
+
+It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver. “Have
+you trapped me?” he asked between his teeth.
+
+“If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name,” I answered,
+“you would know me incapable of such a thing. It is because I know that
+of the Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven,
+a dastard and a dog, that I have taken my precautions.”
+
+“Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if
+bound hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?”
+
+I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.
+
+“Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself
+affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take
+it up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking.”
+
+For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as
+most fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.
+
+“Read!” he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well
+warned by now, I read with confidence.
+
+It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death
+to make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which
+I traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
+
+“This document is not exact,” said I. “I do not hold this castle
+traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's
+name.”
+
+He smiled. “Persist if you are weary of life,” he said. “Surrender now,
+and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in
+your offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This
+Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano
+by virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the
+Emperor.
+
+“And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the
+Emperor's Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to
+cast you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's
+law and man's alike.”
+
+My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the
+brief to him.
+
+“To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You
+will find him in Piacenza.”
+
+He looked at me, as if he did not understand. “How?” he asked.
+
+I explained. “While you have been cooling your heels in the
+ante-chambers of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy,
+the world hereabouts has moved a little. Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took
+possession of Piacenza in the Emperor's name. To-day the Council will be
+swearing fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant's hands.”
+
+He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement.
+Then he swallowed hard.
+
+“And the Duke?” he asked.
+
+“The Duke has been in Hell these four-and-twenty hours.”
+
+“Dead?” he questioned, his voice hushed.
+
+“Dead,” said I.
+
+He leaned against the rail of the bridge, his arms fallen limply to
+his sides, one hand crushing the Pontifical parchment. Then he braced
+himself again. He had reviewed the situation, and did not see that it
+hurt his position, when all was said.
+
+“Even so,” he urged, “what can you hope for? The Emperor himself must
+bow before this, and do me justice.” And he smacked the document. “I
+demand my wife, and my demand is backed by Pontifical authority. You are
+mad if you think that Charles V can fail to support it.”
+
+“It is possible that Charles V may take a different view of the memorial
+setting forth the circumstances of your marriage, from that which the
+Holy Father appears to have taken. I counsel you to seek the Imperial
+Lieutenant at Piacenza without delay. Here you waste time.”
+
+His lips closed with a snap. Then, at last, his eyes wandered to Bianca,
+who stood just beside and slightly behind me.
+
+“Let me appeal to you, Monna Bianca...” he began.
+
+But at that I got between them. “Are you so dead to shame,” I roared,
+“that you dare address her, you pimp, you jackal, you eater of dirt? Be
+off, or I will have this drawbridge raised and deal with you here and
+now, in despite of Pope and Emperor and all the other powers you can
+invoke. Away with you, then!”
+
+“You shall pay!” he snarled, “By God, you shall pay!”
+
+And on that he went off, in some fear lest I should put my threat into
+execution.
+
+But Bianca was in a panic. “He will do as he says.” she cried as soon as
+we had re-entered the courtyard. “The Emperor cannot deny him justice.
+He must, he must! O, Agostino, it is the end. And see to what a pass I
+have brought you!”
+
+I comforted her. I spoke brave words. I swore to hold that castle as
+long as one stone of it stood upon another. But deep down in my heart
+there was naught but presages of evil.
+
+On the following day, which was Sunday, we had peace. But towards noon
+on Monday the blow fell. An Imperial herald from Piacenza rode out to
+Pagliano with a small escort.
+
+We were in the garden when word was brought us, and I bade the herald be
+admitted. Then I looked at Bianca. She was trembling and had turned very
+white.
+
+We spoke no word whilst they brought the messenger--a brisk fellow in
+his black-and-yellow Austrian livery. He delivered me a sealed letter.
+It proved to be a summons from Ferrante Gonzaga to appear upon the
+morrow before the Imperial Court which would sit in the Communal Palace
+of Piacenza to deliver judgment upon an indictment laid against me by
+Cosimo d'Anguissola.
+
+I looked at the herald, hesitation in my mind and glance. He held out a
+second letter.
+
+“This, my lord, I was asked by favour to deliver to you also.”
+
+I took it, and considered the superscription:
+
+“These to the Most Noble Agostino d'Anguissola, at Pagliano.
+
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.”
+
+The hand was Galeotto's. I tore it open. It contained but two lines:
+
+“Upon your life do not fail to obey the Imperial summons. Send Falcone
+to me here at once.” And it was signed--“GALEOTTO.”
+
+“It is well,” I said to the herald, “I will not fail to attend.”
+
+I bade the seneschal who stood in attendance to give the messenger
+refreshment ere he left, and upon that dismissed him.
+
+When we were alone I turned to Bianca. “Galeotto bids me go,” I said.
+“There is surely hope.”
+
+She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away
+some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the
+curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
+
+“It is the end,” I said. “One way or the other, it is the end. But
+for Galeotto's letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made
+myself an outlaw indeed. As it is--there is surely hope!”
+
+“O, Agostino, surely, surely!” she cried. “Have we not suffered enough?
+Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours?
+To-morrow I shall go with you to Piacenza.”
+
+“No, no,” I implored her.
+
+“Could I remain here?” she pleaded. “Could I sit here and wait? Could
+you be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?”
+
+“But if... if the worst befalls?”
+
+“It cannot,” she answered. “I believe in God.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the
+Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes--the
+Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not
+their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet
+edged with miniver.
+
+They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga
+slightly above them on a raised dais, under a canopy. Behind him hung a
+golden shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns each
+surmounted by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a
+scroll intertwining the pillars was charged with the motto “PLUS ULTRA.”
+
+At the back of the court stood the curious who had come to see the show,
+held in bounds by a steel line of Spanish halberdiers. But the concourse
+was slight, for the folk of Piacenza still had weightier matters to
+concern them than the trial of a wife-stealer.
+
+I had ridden in with an escort of twenty lances. But I left these in
+the square when I entered the palace and formally made surrender to
+the officer who met me. This officer led me at once into the Chamber of
+Justice, two men-at-arms opening a lane for me through the people with
+the butts of their pikes, so that I came into the open space before my
+judges, and bowed profoundly to Gonzaga.
+
+Coldly he returned the salutation, his prominent eyes regarding me from
+out of that florid, crafty countenance.
+
+On my left, but high up the room and immediately at right angles to the
+judges' tables, sat Galeotto, full-armed. He was flanked on the one
+side by Fra Gervasio, who greeted me with a melancholy smile, and on the
+other by Falcone, who sat rigid.
+
+Opposite to this group on the judges' other hand stood Cosimo. He was
+flushed, and his eyes gleamed as they measured me with haughty triumph.
+From me they passed to Bianca, who followed after me with her women,
+pale, but intrepid and self-contained, her face the whiter by contrast
+with the mourning-gown which she still wore for her father, and which it
+might well come to pass that she should continue hereafter to wear for
+me.
+
+I did not look at her again as she passed on and up towards Galeotto,
+who had risen to receive her. He came some few steps to meet her, and
+escorted her to a seat next to his own, so that Falcone moved down to
+another vacant stool. Her women found place behind her.
+
+An usher set a chair for me, and I, too, sat down, immediately facing
+the Emperor's Lieutenant. Then another usher in a loud voice summoned
+Cosimo to appear and state his grievance.
+
+He advanced a step or two, when Gonzaga raised his hand, to sign to him
+to remain where he was so that all could see him whilst he spoke.
+
+Forthwith, quickly, fluently, and lucidly, as if he had got the thing
+by heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca
+de' Cavalcanti by her father's consent in her father's own Castle of
+Pagliano; how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently
+invested by myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off
+his bride and burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her
+from him, shut up in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his
+quality as her husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano
+against him to his hurt.
+
+Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had
+issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death,
+to make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that
+it was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate
+that I had surrendered. Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy
+Father's authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and
+my life forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of
+Pagliano, which he would hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor.
+
+Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.
+
+The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.
+
+“Have you anything to say?” he asked.
+
+I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.
+
+“Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative,” said I. “When
+he says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the
+night of his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others
+abetting me, he would do well to add in the interests of justice, the
+names of those who were my abettors.”
+
+Cosimo rose again. “Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at
+issue what caitiffs he employed?” he asked haughtily.
+
+“If they were caitiffs it would not matter,” said I. “But they were not.
+Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much.
+The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca's own father, who, having
+discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was
+engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy.”
+
+Cosimo shrugged. “These are mere words,” he said.
+
+“The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth,” I
+cried.
+
+“A prejudiced witness, indeed!” said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga
+nodded, whereupon my heart sank.
+
+“Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were
+with him?” quoth Cosimo. “It will no doubt assist the ends of justice,
+for those men should be standing by him now.”
+
+He checked me no more than in time. I had been on the point of citing
+Falcone; and suddenly I perceived that to do so would be to ruin Falcone
+without helping myself.
+
+I looked at my cousin. “In that case,” said I, “I will not name them.”
+
+Falcone, however, was minded to name himself, for with a grunt he made
+suddenly to rise. But Galeotto stretched an arm across Bianca, and
+forced the equerry back into his seat.
+
+Cosimo saw and smiled. He was very sure of himself by now.
+
+“The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord
+of Pagliano,” he said. “And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in
+naming one who is dead. Your excellency will know the precise importance
+to attach to that.”
+
+Again his excellency nodded. Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed? My
+calm deserted me.
+
+“Will Messer Cosimo tell your excellency under what circumstances the
+Lord of Pagliano died?” I cried.
+
+“It is yourself should be better able to inform the Court of that,”
+ answered Cosimo quickly, “since he died at Pagliano after you had borne
+his daughter thither, as we have proof.”
+
+Gonzaga looked at him sharply. “Are you implying, sir, that there is
+a further crime for which Messer Agostino d'Anguissola should be
+indicted?” he inquired.
+
+Cosimo shrugged and pursed his lips. “I will not go so far, since the
+matter of Ettore Cavalcanti's death does not immediately concern me.
+Besides, there is enough contained in the indictment as it stands.”
+
+The imputation was none the less terrible, and could not fail of
+an effect upon the minds of the Ten. I was in despair, for at every
+question it seemed that the tide of destruction rose higher about me. I
+deemed myself irrevocably lost. The witnesses I might have called were
+as good as gagged.
+
+Yet there was one last question in my quiver--a question which I thought
+must crumple up his confidence.
+
+“Can you tell his excellency where you were upon your marriage night?” I
+cried hoarsely, my temples throbbing.
+
+Superbly Cosimo looked round at the Court; he shrugged, and shook his
+head as if in utter pity.
+
+“I leave it to your excellency to say where a man should be upon his
+marriage night,” he said, with an astounding impudence, and there
+were some who tittered in the crowd behind me. “Let me again beg your
+excellency and your worthinesses to pass to judgment, and so conclude
+this foolish comedy.”
+
+Gonzaga nodded gravely, as if entirely approving, whilst with a fat
+jewelled hand he stroked his ample chin.
+
+“I, too, think that it is time,” he said, whereupon Cosimo, with a sigh
+of relief, would have resumed his seat but that I stayed him with the
+last thing I had to say.
+
+“My lord,” I cried, appealing to Gonzaga, “the true events of that night
+are set forth in a memorial of which two copies were drawn up, one for
+the Pope and the other for your excellency, as the Emperor's vicegerent.
+Shall I recite its contents--that Messer Cosimo may be examined upon
+them.
+
+“It is not necessary,” came Gonzaga's icy voice. “The memorial is here
+before me.” And he tapped a document upon the table. Then he fixed his
+prominent eyes upon Cosimo. “You are aware of its contents?” he asked.
+
+Cosimo bowed, and Galeotto moved at last, for the first time since the
+trial's inception.
+
+Until now he had sat like a carved image, save when he had thrust out
+a hand to restrain Falcone, and his attitude had filled me with an
+unspeakable dread. But at this moment he leaned forward turning an ear
+towards Cosimo, as if anxious not to miss a single word that the man
+might utter. And Cosimo, intent as he was, did not observe the movement.
+
+“I saw its fellow at the Vatican,” said my cousin, “and since the
+Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose
+signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon
+which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola
+before you here.
+
+“Thus is that memorial disposed of as a false and lying document.”
+
+“And yet,” said Gonzaga thoughtfully, his heavy lip between thumb and
+forefinger, “it bears, amongst others, the signature of the Lord of
+Pagliano's confessor.”
+
+“Without violation of the seal of the confessional, it is impossible
+for that friar to testify,” was the answer. “And the Holy Father cannot
+grant him dispensation for so much. His signature, therefore, stands for
+nothing.”
+
+There followed a moment's silence. The Ten whispered among themselves.
+But Gonzaga never consulted them by so much as a glance. They appeared
+to serve none but a decorative office in that Court of his, for they
+bore no share in the dispensing of a justice of which he constituted
+himself the sole arbiter.
+
+At last the Governor spoke.
+
+“It seems, indeed, that there is no more to say and the Court has a
+clear course before it, since the Emperor cannot contravene the mandates
+of the Holy See. Nothing remains, then, but to deliver sentence;
+unless...”
+
+He paused, and his eyes singularly sly, his lips pursed almost
+humorously, he turned his glance upon Galeotto.
+
+“Ser Cosimo,” he said, “has pronounced this memorial a false and lying
+document. Is there anything that you, Messer Galeotto, as its author,
+can have to tell the Court?”
+
+Instantly the condottiero rose, his great scarred face very solemn, his
+eyes brooding. He advanced almost to the very centre of the table, so
+that he all but stood immediately before Gonzaga, yet sideways, so that
+I had him in profile, whilst he fully faced Cosimo.
+
+Cosimo at least had ceased to smile. His handsome white face had lost
+some of its supercilious confidence. Here was something unexpected,
+something upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not
+provided.
+
+“What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?” he demanded harshly.
+
+“That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience,”
+ Gonzaga answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some
+of Cosimo's uneasiness must have been dissipated.
+
+I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a
+word of what was to follow. The blood that had earlier surged to my face
+had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.
+
+Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.
+
+“Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which
+you acted in summoning hither the accused?”
+
+Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto's hands. The
+condottiero studied it, frowning. Then he smote it sharply with his
+right hand.
+
+“This document is not in order,” he announced.
+
+“How?” quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now,
+convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.
+
+“You are here described as Cosimo d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and
+Carmina. These titles are not yours.”
+
+The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo's cheeks.
+
+“Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi,”
+ he replied.
+
+Gonzaga spoke. “The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke,
+and the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by
+Imperial decree. All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible
+to their original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to
+Caesar.”
+
+Cosimo continued to smile. “This is no matter of a confiscation effected
+by Duke Pier Luigi,” he said. “The confiscation and my own investiture
+in the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d'Anguissola's
+recreancy--at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is
+expressly announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and
+in the brief which lies before your excellency. Nor was such express
+announcement necessary, for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to
+the Tyranny of Mondolfo, it follows that upon his being outlawed and his
+life forfeit I enter upon my succession.”
+
+Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated. But Galeotto showed no sign
+of defeat.
+
+“Where is this bull you speak of?” he demanded, as though he were the
+judge himself.
+
+Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga. “Does your excellency ask
+to see it?”
+
+“Assuredly,” said Gonzaga shortly. “I may not take your word for its
+existence.”
+
+Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet,
+unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood
+near Galeotto--not more than an arm's length between them.
+
+The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto. “It seems in order,”
+ he said.
+
+Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he
+looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre
+now wore a smile.
+
+“It is as irregular as the other,” he said. “It is entirely worthless.”
+
+“Worthless?” quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful.
+“But have I not already explained...”
+
+“It sets forth here,” cut in Galeotto with assurance, “that the fief of
+Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola. Now I
+submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses,” he added, turning
+aside, “that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since
+Mondolfo and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola,
+and could no more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the
+back of a naked man--unless,” he added, sneering, “a papal bull is
+capable of miracles.”
+
+Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of
+the enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court
+the silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.
+
+“Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong--that they never
+were the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?” he asked.
+
+“That is what I say,” returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and
+formidable in his gleaming armour.
+
+“To whom, then, did they belong?”
+
+“They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola--Agostino's father.”
+
+Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his
+countenance.
+
+“What folly is this?” he cried. “Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia
+eight years ago.”
+
+“That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has
+left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own
+son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi
+lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.
+
+“But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this
+scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask.” And he pointed
+to his own face.
+
+I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni
+d'Anguissola--my father! And my heart had never told me so!
+
+In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that
+should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
+
+How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had
+mentioned as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could
+have been myself?
+
+I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.
+
+“Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the
+hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me
+from Pope and Pope's bastards; now that I have accomplished my life's
+work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth
+again and resume the state that is my own.
+
+“There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true
+identity; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and
+there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me
+when I lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at
+Perugia.”
+
+“So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against
+my son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and
+get them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
+other than myself.”
+
+Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by
+this shattering blow.
+
+And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But
+after being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he
+mistrusted now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with
+as a mouse by this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.
+
+“We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice,” purred the
+Lieutenant. “There is this memorial, my lord,” he said, and tapped the
+document, his eyes upon my father.
+
+“Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand,
+it can, I think, be done,” he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.
+
+“You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose
+names are here cannot be admitted to testify.”
+
+Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. “Do you defy the Pope?” he
+thundered.
+
+“If necessary,” was the answer. “I have done so all my life.”
+
+Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. “It is not I who have branded this memorial
+false,” he said, “but the Holy Father himself.”
+
+“The Emperor,” said my father, “may opine that in this matter the Holy
+Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is
+myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted
+to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his
+confessor.”
+
+“We cannot admit the confessor,” Gonzaga thrust in.
+
+“Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor
+that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession
+followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal
+of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial
+alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.
+
+“And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight,” he continued in a
+ringing voice, “that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore
+Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so
+will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's
+vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a
+deed--for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage.”
+
+“In that you lie!” screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at
+his throat and brow swelling like ropes.
+
+A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.
+Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the
+fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very
+calm again after his late furious mood.
+
+“Be it so,” he said. “Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you
+to prove it upon my body.”
+
+And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the
+skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower
+half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
+
+Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir
+there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry--however
+much they might be falling now into desuetude--if Cosimo took up the
+glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all
+men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.
+
+For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him.
+He--who had come to this court so confidently--had walked into a trap.
+He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat
+offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the
+glove.
+
+“Upon your body, then--God helping me,” he said.
+
+Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught
+his arm.
+
+“Let me! Father, let me!”
+
+He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed
+moist and singularly soft.
+
+“My son!” he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's
+caress.
+
+“My father!” I answered him, a knot in my throat.
+
+“Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name,”
+ he said. “But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca
+to the Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail.
+Gervasio shall go with you.”
+
+And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
+
+“My lord,” he said, “will you determine when and where this battle is to
+be fought?”
+
+“Upon the instant,” answered my father, “on the banks of Po with a score
+of lances to keep the lists.”
+
+Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. “Do you agree to this?”
+
+“It cannot be too soon for me,” replied the quivering Cosimo, black
+hatred in his glance.
+
+“Be it so, then,” said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with
+him.
+
+My father pressed my hand again. “To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come,”
+ he said, and on that we parted.
+
+My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders. In so far as it
+concerned myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
+
+At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to
+the Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made
+my way through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where
+my lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight
+of me.
+
+Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We
+knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's
+lowest step.
+
+Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the
+church.
+
+Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
+
+And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my
+young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings
+in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous
+mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of
+sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had
+sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and
+veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me--a strolling
+saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought
+after holiness.
+
+But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this
+altar, as I knew.
+
+Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the
+heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year
+at Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife. That
+cross of penitence--so singularly condign to my sin--I had borne with
+fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon
+and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was
+complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that
+pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this
+pure maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had
+come to learn that Love--God's greatest gift--is the great sanctifier of
+man.
+
+That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I
+did not for a moment doubt.
+
+Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
+
+Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
+
+He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He
+smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared
+to look at last.
+
+Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him
+followed Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
+
+“Let the will of Heaven be done,” said my father. And Gervasio came down
+to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini</title>
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini</div>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Strolling Saint</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Rafael Sabatini</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 16, 2001 [eBook #3423]<br />
+[Most recently updated: January 27, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: John Stuart Middleton, and David Widger</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STROLLING SAINT ***</div>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE STROLLING SAINT
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Being the Confessions of the High &amp; Mighty Agostino D'Anguissola<br />Tyrant
+      of Mondolfo &amp; Lord of Carmina, in the State of Piacenza
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Rafael Sabatini
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>BOOK I.</b> </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>THE
+        OBLATE</b> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NOMEN
+        ET OMEN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GINO
+        FALCONE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        PIETISTIC THRALL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LUISINA
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REBELLION
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FRA
+        GERVASIO <br /><br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0008"> <b>BOOK II.</b> </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>GIULIANA</b>
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE HOUSE
+        OF ASTORRE FIFANTI. <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HUMANITIES
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PREUX-CHEVALIER
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MY LORD
+        GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER V.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PABULUM ACHERONTIS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012">
+        CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE IRON GIRDLE <br /><br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <b>BOOK III.</b> </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>THE
+        WILDERNESS</b> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        HOME-COMING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GAMBARA'S
+        INTERESTS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER V.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RENUNCIATION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018">
+        CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HYPNEROTOMACHIA <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INTRUDERS <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE VISION <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE ICONOCLAST
+        <br /><br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0025"> <b>BOOK IV.</b> </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>THE WORLD</b>
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PAGLIANO
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        GOVERNOR OF MILAN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PIER
+        LUIGI FARNESE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MADONNA
+        BIANCA <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        WARNING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER
+        VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE PAPAL BULL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0029">
+        CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE THIRD DEGREE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RETURN <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE NUPTIALS OF
+        BIANCA <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        PENANCE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BLOOD
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        OVERTHROW <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        CITATION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        WILL OF HEAVEN <br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BOOK I. THE OBLATE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. NOMEN ET OMEN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In seeking other than in myself&mdash;as men will&mdash;the causes of my
+      tribulations, I have often inclined to lay the blame of much of the ill
+      that befell me, and the ill that in my sinful life I did to others, upon
+      those who held my mother at the baptismal font and concerted that she
+      should bear the name of Monica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are in life many things which, in themselves, seeming to the vulgar
+      and the heedless to be trivial and without consequence, may yet be causes
+      pregnant of terrible effects, mainsprings of Destiny itself. Amid such
+      portentous trifles I would number the names so heedlessly bestowed upon
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It surprises me that in none of the philosophic writings of the learned
+      scholars of antiquity can I find that this matter of names has been
+      touched upon, much less given the importance of which I account it to be
+      deserving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possibly it is because no one of them ever suffered, as I have suffered,
+      from the consequences of a name. Had it but been so, they might in their
+      weighty and impressive manner have set down a lesson on the subject, and
+      so relieved me&mdash;who am all-conscious of my shortcomings in this
+      direction-from the necessity of repairing that omission out of my own
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let it then, even at this late hour, be considered what a subtle influence
+      for good or ill, what a very mould of character may lie within a name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the dull clod of earth, perhaps, or, again, to the truly strong-minded
+      nature that is beyond such influences, it can matter little that he be
+      called Alexander or Achilles; and once there was a man named Judas who
+      fell so far short of the noble associations of that name that he has
+      changed for all time the very sound and meaning of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to him who has been endowed with imagination&mdash;that greatest boon
+      and greatest affliction of mankind&mdash;or whose nature is such as to
+      crave for models, the name he bears may become a thing portentous by the
+      images it conjures up of some mighty dead who bore it erstwhile and whose
+      life inspires to emulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever may be accounted the general value of this premiss, at least as
+      it concerns my mother I shall hope to prove it apt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They named her Monica. Why the name was chosen I have never learnt; but I
+      do not conceive that there was any reason for the choice other than the
+      taste of her parents in the matter of sounds. It is a pleasing enough
+      name, euphoniously considered, and beyond that&mdash;as is so commonly the
+      case&mdash;no considerations were taken into account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her, however, at once imaginative and of a feeble and dependent spirit,
+      the name was fateful. St. Monica was made the special object of her
+      devotions in girlhood, and remained so later when she became a wife. The
+      Life of St. Monica was the most soiled and fingered portion of an old
+      manuscript collection of the life histories of a score or so of saints
+      that was one of her dearest possessions. To render herself worthy of the
+      name she bore, to model her life upon that of the sainted woman who had
+      sorrowed and rejoiced so much in her famous offspring, became the
+      obsession of my mother's soul. And but that St. Monica had wed and borne a
+      son, I do not believe that my mother would ever have adventured herself
+      within the bonds of wedlock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How often in the stressful, stormy hours of my most unhappy youth did I
+      not wish that she had preferred the virginal life of the cloister, and
+      thus spared me the heavy burden of an existence which her unholy and
+      mistaken saintliness went so near to laying waste!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I like to think that in the days when my father wooed her, she forgot for
+      a spell in the strong arms of that fierce ghibelline the pattern upon
+      which it had become her wont to weave her life; so that in all that drab,
+      sackcloth tissue there was embroidered at least one warm and brilliant
+      little wedge of colour; so that in all that desert waste, in all that
+      parched aridity of her existence, there was at least one little patch of
+      garden-land, fragrant, fruitful, and cool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I like to think it, for at best such a spell must have been brief indeed;
+      and for that I pity her&mdash;I, who once blamed her so very bitterly.
+      Before ever I was born it must have ceased; whilst still she bore me she
+      put from her lips the cup that holds the warm and potent wine of life, and
+      turned her once more to her fasting, her contemplations, and her prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was in the year in which the battle of Pavia was fought and won by
+      the Emperor. My father, who had raised a condotta to lend a hand in the
+      expulsion of the French, was left for dead upon that glorious field.
+      Afterwards he was found still living, but upon the very edge and border of
+      Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have little
+      doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation&mdash;a punishment upon
+      her for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence from the
+      narrow flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the footsteps of
+      Holy Monica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How much the love of my father may still have swayed her I do not know.
+      But to me it seems that in what next she did there was more of duty, more
+      of penitence, more of reparation for the sin of having been a woman as God
+      made her, than of love. Indeed, I almost know this to be so. In delicate
+      health as she was, she bade her people prepare a litter for her, and so
+      she had herself carried into Piacenza, to the Church of St. Augustine.
+      There, having confessed and received the Sacrament, upon her knees before
+      a minor altar consecrated to St. Monica, she made solemn vow that if my
+      father's life was spared she would devote the unborn child she carried to
+      the service of God and Holy Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two months thereafter word was brought her that my father, his recovery by
+      now well-nigh complete, was making his way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow was I born&mdash;a votive offering, an oblate, ere yet I had
+      drawn the breath of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has oft diverted me to conjecture what would have chanced had I been
+      born a girl&mdash;since that could have afforded her no proper parallel.
+      In the circumstance that I was a boy, I have no faintest doubt but that
+      she saw a Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and
+      most natural happenings. It was as it should be; it was as it had been
+      with the Sainted Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk.
+      Monica had borne a son, and he had been named Augustine. It was very well.
+      My name, too, should be Augustine, that I might walk in the ways of that
+      other Augustine, that great theologian whose mother's name was Monica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
+      the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me. It was made to do so.
+      Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint&mdash;with such
+      castrations as my tender years demanded&mdash;was told me and repeated
+      until I knew by heart its every incident and act. Anon his writings were
+      my school-books. His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at
+      which I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my life,
+      that was intended to have been so different, it is from his Confessions
+      that I have gathered inspiration to set down my own&mdash;although betwixt
+      the two you may discern little indeed that is comparable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my
+      father's life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound. That
+      restoration she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than
+      she was, she must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the
+      end. For betwixt my father and my mother I became from my earliest years a
+      subject of contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost in
+      enmity the one against the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
+      Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the
+      seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of
+      our renegade, guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear him
+      reasoning, upbraiding, storming. But he was as an ocean of energy hurling
+      himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic obstinacy. She
+      had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would suffer
+      tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled. And hers was a
+      manner against which that strong man, my father, never could prevail. She
+      would stand before him white-faced and mute, never presuming to return an
+      answer to his pleading or to enter into argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have vowed,&rdquo; she would say, just once; and thereafter, avoiding his
+      fiery glance, she would bow her head meekly, fold her hands, the very
+      incarnation of long-suffering and martyrdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anon, as the storm of his anger crashed about her, two glistening lines
+      would appear upon her pallid face, and her tears&mdash;horrid, silent
+      weeping that brought no trace of emotion to her countenance&mdash;showered
+      down. At that he would fling out of her presence and away, cursing the day
+      in which he had mated with a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His hatred of these moods of hers, of the vow she had made which bade fair
+      to deprive him of his son, drove him ere long to hatred of the cause of it
+      all. A ghibelline by inheritance, he was not long in becoming an utter
+      infidel, at war with Rome and the Pontifical sway. Nor was he one to
+      content himself with passive enmity. He must be up and doing, seeking the
+      destruction of the thing he hated. And so it befell that upon the death of
+      Pope Clement (the second Medici Pontiff), profiting by the weak condition
+      from which the papal army had not yet recovered since the Emperor's
+      invasion and the sack of Rome, my father raised an army and attempted to
+      shatter the ancient yoke which Julius II had imposed upon Parma and
+      Piacenza when he took them from the State of Milan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little lad of seven was I at the time, and well do I remember the
+      martial stir and bustle there was about our citadel of Mondolfo, the armed
+      multitudes that thronged the fortress that was our home, or drilled and
+      manoeuvred upon the green plains beyond the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was all wonder-stricken and fascinated by the sight. My blood was
+      quickened by the brazen notes of their trumpets, and to balance a pike in
+      my hands was to procure me the oddest and most exquisite thrills that I
+      had known. But my mother, perceiving with alarm the delight afforded me by
+      such warlike matters, withdrew me so that I might see as little as
+      possible of it all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there followed scenes between her and my father of which hazy
+      impressions linger in my memory. No longer was she a mute statue, enduring
+      with fearful stoicism his harsh upbraidings. She was turned into a
+      suppliant, now fierce, now lachrymose; by her prayers, by her prophecies
+      of the evil that must attend his ungodly aims, she strove with all her
+      poor, feeble might to turn him from the path of revolt to which he had set
+      his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he would listen now in silence, his face grim and sardonic; and when
+      from very weariness the flow of her inspired oratory began to falter, he
+      would deliver ever the same answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is you who have driven me to this; and this is no more than a
+      beginning. You have made a vow&mdash;an outrageous votive offering of
+      something that is not yours to bestow. That vow you cannot break, you say.
+      Be it so. But I must seek a remedy elsewhere. To save my son from the
+      Church to which you would doom him, I will, ere I have done, tear down the
+      Church and make an end of it in Italy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at that she would shrivel up before him with a little moan of horror,
+      taking her poor white face in her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blasphemer!&rdquo; she would cry in mingled terror and aversion, and upon that
+      word&mdash;the &ldquo;Amen&rdquo; to all their conferences in those last days they
+      spent together&mdash;she would turn, and dragging me with her, all stunned
+      and bewildered by something beyond my understanding, she would hurry me to
+      the chapel of the citadel, and there, before the high altar, prostrate
+      herself and spend long hours in awful sobbing intercessions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so the gulf between them widened until the day of his departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not present at their parting. What farewells may have been spoken
+      between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the other that
+      they were destined never to meet again, I do not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember being rudely awakened one dark morning early in the year, and
+      lifted from my bed by arms to whose clasp I never failed to thrill. Close
+      to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of great eyes,
+      humid with tears, considered me passionately. Then a ringing voice&mdash;that
+      commanding voice that was my father's&mdash;spoke to Falcone, the
+      man-at-arms who attended him and who ever acted as his equerry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we take him with us to the wars, Falcone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My little arms went round his neck and tightened there convulsively until
+      the steel rim of his gorget bit into them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take me!&rdquo; I sobbed. &ldquo;Take me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed for answer, with something of exultation in his voice. He swung
+      me to his shoulder, and held me poised there, looking up at me. And then
+      he laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dost hear the whelp?&rdquo; he cried to Falcone. &ldquo;Still with his milk-teeth in
+      his head, and already does he yelp for battle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he looked up at me again, and swore one of his great oaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can trust you, son of mine,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;They'll never make a
+      shaveling of you. When your thews are grown it will not be on thuribles
+      they'll spend their strength, or I'm a liar else. Be patient yet awhile,
+      and we shall ride together, never doubt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he pulled me down again to kiss me, and he clasped me to his
+      breast so that the studs of his armour remained stamped upon my tender
+      flesh after he had departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next instant he was gone, and I lay weeping, a very lonely little
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in the revolt that he led he had not reckoned upon the might and
+      vigour of the new Farnese Pontiff. He had conceived, perhaps, that one
+      pope must be as supine as another, and that Paul III would prove no more
+      redoubtable than Clement VIII. To his bitter cost did he discover his
+      mistake. Beyond the Po he was surprised by the Pontifical army under
+      Ferrante Orsini, and there his force was cut to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My father himself escaped and with him some other gentlemen of Piacenza,
+      notably one of the scions of the great house of Pallavicini, who took a
+      wound in the leg which left him lame for life, so that ever after he was
+      known as Pallavicini il Zopo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were all under the pope's ban, outlaws with a price upon the head of
+      each, hunted and harried from State to State by the papal emissaries, so
+      that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed, within
+      the State of Piacenza, which had been rudely punished for the
+      insubordination it had permitted to be reared upon its soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mondolfo went near to suffering confiscation. Assuredly it would have
+      suffered it but for the influence exerted on my mother's and my own behalf
+      by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere, seconded by
+      that guelphic cousin of my father's, Cosimo d'Anguissola, who, after me,
+      was heir to Mondolfo, and had, therefore, good reason not to see it
+      confiscated to the Holy See.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it fell out that we were left in peace and not made to suffer from my
+      father's rebellion. For that, he himself should suffer when taken. But
+      taken he never was. From time to time we had news of him. Now he was in
+      Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for his
+      safety's sake. And then one night, six years later, a scarred and grizzled
+      veteran, coming none knew whence, dropped from exhaustion in the courtyard
+      of our citadel, whither he had struggled. Some went to minister to him,
+      and amongst these there was a groom who recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Messer Falcone!&rdquo; he cried, and ran to bear the news to my mother,
+      with whom I was at table at the time. With us, too, was Fra Gervasio, our
+      chaplain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was grim news that old Falcone brought us. He had never quitted my
+      father in those six weary years of wandering until now that my father was
+      beyond the need of his or any other's service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been a rising and a bloody battle at Perugia, Falcone informed
+      us. An attempt had been made to overthrow the rule there of Pier Luigi
+      Farnese, Duke of Castro, the pope's own abominable son. For some months my
+      father had been enjoying the shelter of the Perugians, and he had repaid
+      their hospitality by joining them and bearing arms with them in the
+      ill-starred blow they struck for liberty. They had been crushed in the
+      encounter by the troops of Pier Luigi, and my father had been among the
+      slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And well was it for him that he came by so fine and merciful an end,
+      thought I, when I had heard the tale of horrors that had been undergone by
+      the unfortunates who had fallen into the hands of Farnese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My mother heard him to the end without any sign of emotion. She sat there,
+      cold and impassive as a thing of marble, what time Fra Gervasio&mdash;who
+      was my father's foster-brother, as you shall presently learn more fully&mdash;sank
+      his head upon his arm and wept like a child to hear the piteous tale of
+      it. And whether from force of example, whether from the memories that came
+      to me so poignantly in that moment of a fine strong man with a brown,
+      shaven face and a jovial, mighty voice, who had promised me that one day
+      we should ride together, I fell a-weeping too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the tale was done, my mother coldly gave orders that Falcone be cared
+      for, and went to pray, taking me with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oftentimes since have I wondered what was the tenour of her prayers that
+      night. Were they for the rest of the great turbulent soul that was gone
+      forth in sin, in arms against the Holy Church, excommunicate and
+      foredoomed to Hell? Or were they of thanksgiving that at last she was
+      completely mistress of my destinies, her mind at rest, since no longer
+      need she fear opposition to her wishes concerning me? I do not know, nor
+      will I do her the possible injustice that I should were I to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. GINO FALCONE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When I think of my mother now I do not see her as she appeared in any of
+      the scenes that already I have set down. There is one picture of her that
+      is burnt as with an acid upon my memory, a picture which the mere mention
+      of her name, the mere thought of her, never fails to evoke like a ghost
+      before me. I see her always as she appeared one evening when she came
+      suddenly and without warning upon Falcone and me in the armoury of the
+      citadel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see her again, a tall, slight, graceful woman, her oval face of the
+      translucent pallor of wax, framed in a nun-like coif, over which was
+      thrown a long black veil that fell to her waist and there joined the black
+      unrelieved draperies that she always wore. This sable garb was no mere
+      mourning for my father. His death had made as little change in her apparel
+      as in her general life. It had been ever thus as far as my memory can
+      travel; always had her raiment been the same, those trailing funereal
+      draperies. Again I see them, and that pallid face with its sunken eyes,
+      around which there were great brown patches that seemed to intensify the
+      depth at which they were set and the sombre lustre of them on the rare
+      occasions when she raised them; those slim, wax-like hands, with a chaplet
+      of beads entwined about the left wrist and hanging thence to a silver
+      crucifix at the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved almost silently, as a ghost; and where she passed she seemed to
+      leave a trail of sorrow and sadness in her wake, just as a worldly woman
+      leaves a trail of perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus looked she when she came upon us there that evening, and thus will
+      she live for ever in my memory, for that was the first time that I knew
+      rebellion against the yoke she was imposing upon me; the first time that
+      our wills clashed, hers and mine; and as a consequence, maybe, was it the
+      first time that I considered her with purpose and defined her to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thing befell some three months after the coming of Falcone to
+      Mondolfo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the old man-at-arms should have exerted a strong attraction upon my
+      young mind, you will readily understand. His intimate connection with that
+      dimly remembered father, who stood secretly in my imagination in the
+      position that my mother would have had St. Augustine occupy, drew me to
+      his equerry like metal to a lodestone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this attraction was reciprocal. Of his own accord old Falcone sought
+      me out, lingering in my neighbourhood at first like a dog that looks for a
+      kindly word. He had not long to wait. Daily we had our meetings and our
+      talks and daily did these grow in length; and they were stolen hours of
+      which I said no word to my mother, nor did others for a season, so that
+      all was well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our talks were naturally of my father, and it was through Falcone that I
+      came to know something of the greatness of that noble-souled, valiant
+      gentleman, whom the old servant painted for me as one who combined with
+      the courage of the lion the wiliness of the fox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He discoursed of their feats of arms together, he described charges of
+      horse that set my nerves a-tingle as in fancy I heard the blare of
+      trumpets and the deafening thunder of hooves upon the turf. Of escalades,
+      of surprises, of breaches stormed, of camisades and ambushes, of dark
+      treacheries and great heroisms did he descant to fire my youthful fancy,
+      to fill me first with delight, and then with frenzy when I came to think
+      that in all these things my life must have no part, that for me another
+      road was set&mdash;a grey, gloomy road at the end of which was dangled a
+      reward which did not greatly interest me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then one day from fighting as an endeavour, as a pitting of force
+      against force and astuteness against astuteness, he came to talk of
+      fighting as an art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was from old Falcone that first I heard of Marozzo, that miracle-worker
+      in weapons, that master at whose academy in Bologna the craft of
+      swordsmanship was to be acquired, so that from fighting with his irons as
+      a beast with its claws, by sheer brute strength and brute instinct, man
+      might by practised skill and knowledge gain advantages against which mere
+      strength must spend itself in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he told me amazed me beyond anything that I had ever heard, even from
+      himself, and what he told me he illustrated, flinging himself into the
+      poises taught by Marozzo that I might appreciate the marvellous science of
+      the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus was it that for the first time I made the acquaintance&mdash;an
+      acquaintance held by few men in those days&mdash;of those marvellous
+      guards of Marozzo's devising; Falcone showed me the difference between the
+      mandritto and the roverso, the false edge and the true, the stramazone and
+      the tondo; and he left me spellbound by that marvellous guard
+      appropriately called by Marozzo the iron girdle&mdash;a low guard on the
+      level of the waist, which on the very parry gives an opening for the
+      point, so that in one movement you may ward and strike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when I questioned him, he admitted that during their wanderings,
+      my father, with that recklessness that alternated curiously with his
+      caution, had ventured into the city of Bologna notwithstanding that it was
+      a Papal fief, for the sole purpose of studying with Marozzo that Falcone
+      himself had daily accompanied him, witnessed the lessons, and afterwards
+      practised with my father, so that he had come to learn most of the secrets
+      that Marozzo taught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, at last, very timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of his
+      utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself
+      without the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something of
+      Marozzo's art with real weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had feared a rebuff. I had thought that even old Falcone might laugh at
+      one predestined to the study of theology, desiring to enter into the
+      mysteries of sword-craft. But my fears were far indeed from having a
+      foundation. There was no laughter in the equerry's grey eyes, whilst the
+      smile upon his lips was a smile of gladness, of eagerness, almost of
+      thankfulness to see me so set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so it came to pass that daily thereafter did we practise for an hour
+      or so in the armoury with sword and buckler, and with every lesson my
+      proficiency with the iron grew in a manner that Falcone termed prodigious,
+      swearing that I was born to the sword, that the knack of it was in the
+      very blood of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be that affection for me caused him to overrate the progress that I
+      made and the aptitude I showed; it may even be that what he said was no
+      more than the good-natured flattery of one who loved me and would have me
+      take pleasure in myself. And yet when I look back at the lad I was, I
+      incline to think that he spoke no more than sober truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have alluded to the curious, almost inexplicable delight it afforded me
+      to feel in my hands the balance of a pike for the first time. Fain would I
+      tell you something of all that I felt when first my fingers closed about a
+      sword-hilt, the forefinger passed over the quillons in the new manner, as
+      Falcone showed me. But it defies all power of words. The sweet seduction
+      of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the blade, were things that
+      thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of the first kiss of
+      passion. It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can think of nothing
+      else in life that is worthy of being compared with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at the time a lad in my thirteenth year, but I was well-grown and
+      strong beyond my age, despite the fact that my mother had restrained me
+      from all those exercises of horsemanship, of arms, and of wrestling by
+      which boys of my years attain development. I stood almost as tall then as
+      Falcone himself&mdash;who was accounted of a good height&mdash;and if my
+      reach fell something short of his, I made up for this by the youthful
+      quickness of my movements; so that soon&mdash;unless out of good nature he
+      refrained from exerting his full vigour&mdash;I found myself Falcone's
+      match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Gervasio, who was then my tutor, and with whom my mornings were spent
+      in perfecting my Latin and giving me the rudiments of Greek, soon had his
+      suspicions of where the hour of the siesta was spent by me with old
+      Falcone. But the good, saintly man held his peace, a matter which at that
+      time intrigued me. Others there were, however, who thought well to bear
+      the tale of our doings to my mother, and thus it happened that she came
+      upon us that day in the armoury, each of us in shirt and breeches at
+      sword-and-target play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We fell apart upon her entrance, each with a guilty feeling, like children
+      caught in a forbidden orchard, for all that Falcone held himself proudly
+      erect, his grizzled head thrown back, his eyes cold and hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long while it seemed ere she spoke, and once or twice I shot her a
+      furtive comprehensive glance, and saw her as I shall ever see her to my
+      dying day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes were upon me. I do not believe that she gave Falcone a single
+      thought at first. It was at me only that she looked, and with such a
+      sorrow in her glance to see me so vigorous and lusty, as surely could not
+      have been fetched there by the sight of my corpse itself. Her lips moved
+      awhile in silence; and whether she was at her everlasting prayers, or
+      whether she was endeavouring to speak but could not for emotion, I do not
+      know. At last her voice came, laden with a chill reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo; she said, and waited as if for some answer from me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in that instant that rebellion stirred in me. Her coming had turned
+      me cold, for all that my body was overheated from the exercise and I was
+      sweating furiously. Now, at the sound of her voice, something of the
+      injustice that oppressed me, something of the unreasoning bigotry that
+      chained and fettered me, stood clear before my mental vision for the first
+      time. It warmed me again with the warmth of sullen indignation. I returned
+      her no answer beyond a curtly respectful invitation that she should speak
+      her mind, couched&mdash;as had been her reproof&mdash;in a single word of
+      address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna?&rdquo; I challenged, and emulating something of old Falcone's
+      attitude, I drew myself erect, flung back my head, and brought my eyes to
+      the level of her own by an effort of will such as I had never yet exerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, I think, the bravest thing I ever did. I felt, in doing it, as one
+      feels who has nerved himself to enter fire. And when the thing was done,
+      the ease of it surprised me. There followed no catastrophe such as I
+      expected. Before my glance, grown suddenly so very bold, her own eyes
+      drooped and fell away as was her habit. She spoke thereafter without
+      looking at me, in that cold, emotionless voice that was peculiar to her
+      always, the voice of one in whom the founts of all that is sweet and
+      tolerant and tender in life are for ever frozen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing with weapons, Agostino?&rdquo; she asked me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you see, madam mother, I am at practice,&rdquo; I answered, and out of the
+      corner of my eye I caught the grim approving twitch of old Falcone's lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At practice?&rdquo; she echoed, dully as one who does not understand. Then very
+      slowly she shook her sorrowful head. &ldquo;Men practise what they must one day
+      perform, Agostino. To your books, then, and leave swords for bloody men,
+      nor ever let me see you again with weapons in your hands if you respect
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had you not come hither, madam mother, you had been spared the sight
+      to-day,&rdquo; I answered with some lingering spark of my rebellious fire still
+      smouldering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities
+      before they take too strong a hold upon you,&rdquo; answered she. &ldquo;Lay down
+      those weapons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she been angry, I think I could have withstood her. Anger in her at
+      such a time must have been as steel upon the flint of my own nature. But
+      against that incarnation of sorrow and sadness, my purpose, my strength of
+      character were turned to water. By similar means had she ever prevailed
+      with my poor father. And I had, too, the habit of obedience which is not
+      so lightly broken as I had at first accounted possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sullenly then I set down my sword upon a bench that stood against the
+      wall, and my target with it. As I turned aside to do so, her gloomy eyes
+      were poised for an instant upon Falcone, who stood grim and silent. Then
+      they were lowered again ere she began to address him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have done very ill, Falcone,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;You have abused my trust in
+      you, and you have sought to pervert my son and to lead him into ways of
+      evil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started under that reproof like a fiery stallion under the spur. His
+      face flushed scarlet. The habit of obedience may have been strong in
+      Falcone too; but it was obedience to men; with women he had never had much
+      to do, old warrior though he was. Moreover, in this he felt that an
+      affront had been put upon the memory of Giovanni d'Anguissola, who was my
+      father and who went nigh to being Falcone's god. And this his answer
+      plainly showed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ways into which I lead your son, Madonna,&rdquo; said he in a low voice
+      that boomed up and echoed in the groined ceiling overhead, &ldquo;are the ways
+      that were trod by my lord his father. And who says that the ways of
+      Giovanni d'Anguissola were evil ways lies foully, be he man or woman,
+      patrician or villein, pope or devil.&rdquo; And upon that he paused
+      magnificently, his eyes aflash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shuddered under his rough speech. Then answered without looking up,
+      and with no trace of anger in her voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are restored to health and strength by now, Messer Falcone. The
+      seneschal shall have orders to pay you ten gold ducats in discharge of all
+      that may be still your due from us. See that by night you have left
+      Mondolfo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, without changing her deadly inflection, or even making a
+      noticeable pause, &ldquo;Come, Agostino,&rdquo; she commanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I did not move. Her words had fixed me there with horror. I heard from
+      Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob. I dared not look at
+      him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and
+      self-contained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would he do, what would he say? Oh, she had done a cruel, a bitterly
+      cruel wrong. This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched from wounds
+      that he had taken in my father's service, to be turned away in his old
+      age, as we should not have turned away a dog! It was a monstrous thing.
+      Mondolfo was his home. The Anguissola were his family, and their honour
+      was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of his own. To cast
+      him out thus!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time, as
+      I waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that
+      dismissal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that,
+      without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old
+      Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise. And
+      then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that I
+      had looked for. Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he
+      dropped on one knee before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; he cried, and before he added another word I knew already what
+      else he was about to say. For never yet had I been so addressed in my
+      lordship of Mondolfo. To all there I was just the Madonnino. But to
+      Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he said, then. &ldquo;Is it your wish that I should go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother's voice
+      came cold and acid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Madonnino's wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone. It is I
+      who order your departure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued to
+      address himself to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the master here, my lord,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;You are the law in
+      Mondolfo. You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your
+      will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain before
+      me all these months, yet which I had not seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord,&rdquo; he added; and then, almost
+      in a snarl of defiance, &ldquo;I obey none other,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;nor pope nor
+      devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino, I am waiting for you,&rdquo; came my mother's voice from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something had me by the throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone was the
+      tempter. More than that was he&mdash;though how much more I did not dream,
+      nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who showed me
+      the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow I might
+      shiver the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the cobwebs
+      that they were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my will; and to my
+      undoing was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My regrets for him
+      went near to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet even these fell
+      short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would to God I had given heed to him. I would to God I had flung back my
+      head and told my mother&mdash;as he prompted me&mdash;that I was lord of
+      Mondolfo, and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such fine
+      spirit as he sought to inspire in me. Had I succeeded I had established my
+      dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much of misery, of
+      anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been spared!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hour was crucial, though I knew it not. I stood at a parting of ways;
+      yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so
+      invitingly he beckoned me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I
+      strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown
+      faltering and tearful&mdash;as was her wont in the old days when she ruled
+      my father&mdash;she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all
+      the strength of my poor young soul to snap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother's. Tell him so and
+      come. I am waiting for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stifled a groan, and let my arms fall limply to my sides. I was a
+      weakling and contemptible. I realized it. And yet to-day when I look back
+      I see how vast a strength I should have needed. I was but thirteen and of
+      a spirit that had been cowed by her, and was held under her thrall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I am sorry, Falcone,&rdquo; I faltered, and there were tears in my eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrugged again&mdash;shrugged in token of my despair and grief and
+      impotence&mdash;and I moved down the long room towards the door where my
+      mother waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not dare to bestow another look upon that poor broken old warrior,
+      that faithful, lifelong servant, turned thus cruelly upon the world by a
+      woman whom bigotry had sapped of all human feelings and a boy who was a
+      coward masquerading under a great name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard his gasping sob, and the sound smote upon my heart and hurt me as
+      if it had been iron. I had failed him. He must suffer more in the
+      knowledge of my unworthiness to be called the son of that master whom he
+      had worshipped than in the destitution that might await him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord! My lord!&rdquo; he cried after me despairingly. On the very threshold
+      I stood arrested by that heartbroken cry of his. I half turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Falcone... &ldquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then my mother's white hand fell upon my wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, my son,&rdquo; she said, once more impassive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I passed out I heard Falcone's voice
+      crying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, my lord! God help me, and God help you!&rdquo; An hour later he had
+      left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden ducats
+      which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy grooms or
+      serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse had old
+      Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her
+      ever to have done before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me
+      notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber. It may be
+      that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment in
+      the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to obey
+      her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny ere it
+      should spread and become too big for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat in the room that was called her private dining-room, but which, in
+      fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my
+      father's day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings,
+      their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the
+      looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved
+      movables, had been shut up these many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my mother's claustral needs sufficient was provided by the alcove in
+      which she slept, the private chapel of the citadel in which she would
+      spend long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into the
+      spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into our town of
+      Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his ill-starred
+      rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me whom you go with, and I will tell you what you are,&rdquo; says the
+      proverb. &ldquo;Show me your dwelling, and I shall see your character,&rdquo; say I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And surely never was there a chamber so permeated by the nature of its
+      tenant as that private dining-room of my mother's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a narrow room in the shape of a small parallelogram, with the
+      windows set high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it was
+      impossible either to look in or to look out, as is sometimes the case with
+      the windows of a chapel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the white space of wall that faced the door hung a great wooden
+      Crucifix, very rudely carved by one who either knew nothing of anatomy, or
+      else&mdash;as is more probable&mdash;was utterly unable to set down his
+      knowledge upon timber. The crudely tinted figure would be perhaps half the
+      natural size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous
+      representation of the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen. It filled
+      one with a horror which was far indeed removed from the pious horror which
+      that Symbol is intended to arouse in every true believer. It emphasized
+      all the ghastly ugliness of death upon that most barbarous of gallows,
+      without any suggestion of the beauty and immensity of the Divine Martyrdom
+      of Him Who in the likeness of the sinful flesh was Alone without sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And to me the ghastliest and most pitiful thing of all was an artifice
+      which its maker had introduced for the purpose of conveying some
+      suggestion of the supernatural to that mangled, malformed, less than human
+      representation. Into the place of the wound made by the spear of Longinus,
+      he had introduced a strip of crystal which caught the light at certain
+      angles&mdash;more particularly when there were lighted tapers in the room&mdash;so
+      that in reflecting this it seemed to shed forth luminous rays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An odd thing was that my mother&mdash;who looked upon that Crucifix with
+      eyes that were very different from mine&mdash;would be at pains in the
+      evening when lights were fetched to set a taper at such an angle as was
+      best calculated to produce the effect upon which the sculptor had counted.
+      What satisfaction it can have been to her to see reflected from that
+      glazed wound the light which she herself had provided for the purpose, I
+      am lost to think. And yet I am assured that she would contemplate that
+      shining effluence in a sort of ecstatic awe, accounting it something very
+      near akin to miracle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under this Crucifix hung a little alabaster font of holy-water, into the
+      back of which was stuck a withered, yellow branch of palm, which was
+      renewed on each Palm Sunday. Before it was set a praying-stool of plain
+      oak, without any cushion to mitigate its harshness to the knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the corner of the room stood a tall, spare, square cupboard, capacious
+      but very plain, in which the necessaries of the table were disposed. In
+      the opposite corner there was another smaller cupboard with a sort of
+      writing-pulpit beneath. Here my mother kept the accounts of her household,
+      her books of recipes, her homely medicines and the heavy devotional tomes
+      and lesser volumes&mdash;mostly manuscript&mdash;out of which she
+      nourished her poor starving soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst these was the Treatise of the Mental Sufferings of Christ&mdash;the
+      book of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who founded
+      the convent of Poor Clares in that city&mdash;a book whose almost
+      blasphemous presumption fired the train of my earliest misgivings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another was The Spiritual Combat, that queer yet able book of the cleric
+      Scupoli&mdash;described as the &ldquo;aureo libro,&rdquo; dedicated &ldquo;Al Supremo
+      Capitano e Gloriosissimo Trionfatore, Gesu Cristo, Figliuolo di Maria,&rdquo;
+       and this dedication in the form of a letter to Our Saviour, signed, &ldquo;Your
+      most humble servant, purchased with Your Blood.&rdquo; 1
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This work, which achieved a great vogue and of which
+     several editions were issued down to 1750, was first printed
+     in 1589. Clearly, however, MS. copies were in existence
+     earlier, and it is to one of these that Agostino here
+     refers.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Down the middle of the chamber ran a long square-ended table of oak, very
+      plain like all the rest of the room's scant furnishings. At the head of
+      this table was an arm-chair for my mother, of bare wood without any
+      cushion to relieve its hardness, whilst on either side of the board stood
+      a few lesser chairs for those who habitually dined there. These were,
+      besides myself, Fra Gervasio, my tutor; Messer Giorgio, the castellan, a
+      bald-headed old man long since past the fighting age and who in times of
+      stress would have been as useful for purposes of defending Mondolfo as
+      Lorenza, my mother's elderly woman, who sat below him at the board; he was
+      toothless, bowed, and decrepit, but he was very devout&mdash;as he had
+      need to be, seeing that he was half dead already&mdash;and this counted
+      with my mother above any other virtue.2
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2 Virtu is the word used by Agostino, and it is susceptible to a wider
+      translation than that which the English language affords, comprising as it
+      does a sense of courage and address at arms. Indeed, it is not clear that
+      Agostino is not playing here upon the double meaning of the word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last of the four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the
+      seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom
+      the only joyous thing was his misnomer of a name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the table that we kept, beyond noting that the fare was ever of a
+      lenten kind and that the wine was watered, I will but mention that my
+      mother did not observe the barrier of the salt. There was no sitting above
+      it or below at our board, as, from time immemorial, is the universal
+      custom in feudal homes. That her having abolished it was an act of
+      humility on her part there can be little doubt, although this was a
+      subject upon which she never expressed herself in my hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The walls of that room were whitewashed and bare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor was of stone overlain by a carpet of rushes that was changed no
+      oftener than once a week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From what I have told you, you may picture something of the chill gloom of
+      the place, something of the pietism which hung upon the very air of that
+      apartment in which so much of my early youth was spent. And it had, too,
+      an odour that is peculiarly full of character, the smell which is never
+      absent from a sacristy and rarely from conventual chambers; a smell
+      difficult to define, faint and yet tenuously pungent, and like no other
+      smell in all the world that I have ever known. It is a musty odour, an
+      odour of staleness which perhaps an open window and the fresh air of
+      heaven might relieve but could not dissipate; and to this is wed, but so
+      subtly that it would be impossible to say which is predominant, the
+      slight, sickly aroma of wax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We supped there that night in silence at about the hour that poor Gino
+      Falcone would be taking his departure. Silence was habitual with us at
+      meal-times, eating being performed&mdash;like everything else in that drab
+      household&mdash;as a sort of devotional act. Occasionally the silence
+      would be relieved by readings aloud from some pious work, undertaken at my
+      mother's bidding by one or another of the amanuenses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the night in question there was just silence, broken chiefly by the
+      toothless slobber of the castellan over the soft meats that were
+      especially prepared for him. And there was something of grimness in that
+      silence; for none&mdash;and Fra Gervasio less than any&mdash;approved the
+      unchristian thing that out of excess of Christianity my mother had done in
+      driving old Falcone forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Myself, I could not eat at all. My misery choked me. The thought of that
+      old servitor whom I had loved being sent a wanderer and destitute, and all
+      through my own weakness, all because I had failed him in his need, just as
+      I had failed myself, was anguish to me. My lip would quiver at the
+      thought, and it was with difficulty that I repressed my tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last that hideous repast came to an end in prayers of thanksgiving
+      whose immoderate length was out of all proportion to the fare provided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The castellan shuffled forth upon the arm of the seneschal; Lorenza
+      followed at a sign from my mother, and we three&mdash;Gervasio, my mother,
+      and I&mdash;were left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here let me say a word of Fra Gervasio. He was, as I have already
+      written, my father's foster-brother. That is to say, he was the child of a
+      sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose lusty, healthy breast
+      my father had suckled the first of that fine strength that had been his
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was older than my father by a month or so, and as often happens in such
+      cases, he was brought to Mondolfo to be first my father's playmate, and
+      later, no doubt, to have followed him as a man-at-arms. But a chill that
+      he took in his tenth year as a result of a long winter immersion in the
+      icy waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left him
+      thereafter of a rather weak and sickly nature. But he was quick and
+      intelligent, and was admitted to learn his letters with my father, whence
+      it ensued that he developed a taste for study. Seeing that by his health
+      he was debarred from the hardy open life of a soldier, his scholarly
+      aptitude was encouraged, and it was decided that he should follow a
+      clerical career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had entered the order of St. Francis; but after some years at the
+      Convent of Aguilona, his health having been indifferent and the conventual
+      rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence to become the
+      chaplain of Mondolfo. Here he had received the kindliest treatment at the
+      hands of my father, who entertained for his sometime playmate a very real
+      affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a tall, gaunt man with a sweet, kindly face, reflecting his sweet,
+      kindly nature; he had deep-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their gaze, a
+      tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffering and an upright
+      wrinkle, deep as a gash, between his brows at the root of his long,
+      slender nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He it was that night who broke the silence that endured even after the
+      others had departed. He spoke at first as if communing with himself, like
+      a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and his long forefinger, I
+      remember that he kneaded a crumb of bread upon which his eyes were intent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He
+      would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift, to
+      die to no purpose. Ah, well.&rdquo; He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
+      whilst I&mdash;the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my
+      thoughts thus expressed&mdash;fell soundlessly to weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?&rdquo; quoth my mother, quite emotionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk pushed back his stool and rose ere he replied. &ldquo;I must,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear. I must reprove this unchristian
+      act, or else am I no true servant of my Master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She crossed herself with her thumb-nail upon the brow and upon the lips,
+      to repress all evil thoughts and evil words&mdash;an unfailing sign that
+      she was stirred to anger and sought to combat the sin of it. Then she
+      spoke, meekly enough, in the same cold, level voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it is you who are at fault,&rdquo; she told him, &ldquo;when you call
+      unchristian an act which was necessary to secure this child to Christ.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled a sad little smile. &ldquo;Yet even so, it were well you should
+      proceed with caution and with authority; and in this you have none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her turn to smile, the palest, ghostliest of smiles, and even for
+      so much she must have been oddly moved. &ldquo;I think I have,&rdquo; said she, and
+      quoted, &ldquo;'If thy right hand offend thee, hack it off.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw a hot flush mount to the friar's prominent cheek-bones. Indeed, he
+      was a very human man under his conventual robe, with swift stirrings of
+      passion which the long habit of repression had not yet succeeded in
+      extinguishing. He cast his eyes to the ceiling in such a glance of despair
+      as left me thoughtful. It was as an invocation to Heaven to look down upon
+      the obstinate, ignorant folly of this woman who accounted herself wise and
+      who so garbled the Divine teaching as to blaspheme with complacency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know that now; at the time I was not quite so clear-sighted as to read
+      the full message of that glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her audacity was as the audacity of fools. Where wisdom, full-fledged,
+      might have halted, trembling, she swept resolutely onward. Before her
+      stood this friar, this teacher and interpreter, this man of holy life who
+      was accounted profoundly learned in the Divinities; and he told her that
+      she had done an evil thing. Yet out of the tiny pittance of her knowledge
+      and her little intellectual sight&mdash;which was no better than a
+      blindness&mdash;must she confidently tell him that he was at fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argument was impossible between him and her. Thus much I saw, and I feared
+      an explosion of the wrath of which I perceived in him the signs. But he
+      quelled it. Yet his voice rumbled thunderously upon his next words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters something that Gino Falcone should not starve,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters more that my son should not be damned,&rdquo; she answered him, and
+      with that answer left him weapon-less, for against the armour of a
+      crassness so dense and one-ideaed there are no weapons that can prevail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; she said, and her eyes, raised for a moment, comprehended both
+      of us in their glance. &ldquo;There is something that it were best I tell you,
+      that once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino
+      here. My lord his father was a man of blood and strife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and are
+      its glory,&rdquo; answered the friar with quick asperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against
+      Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he,&rdquo; she reminded him sorrowfully.
+      &ldquo;The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause. In my
+      lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing
+      accursed. But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia in all
+      the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer. It was
+      perhaps well for all of us that it so befell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna!&rdquo; cried Gervasio in stern horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she went on quite heedless of him. &ldquo;Best of all was it for me, since I
+      was spared the harshest duty that can be imposed upon a woman and a wife.
+      It was necessary that he should expiate the evil he had wrought; moreover,
+      his life was become a menace to my child's salvation. It was his wish to
+      make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only son adown the
+      path of Hell. It was my duty to my God and to my son to shield this boy.
+      And to accomplish that I would have delivered up his father to the papal
+      emissaries who sought him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, never that!&rdquo; the friar protested. &ldquo;You could never have done that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could I not? I tell you it was as good as done. I tell you that the thing
+      was planned. I took counsel with my confessor, and he showed me my plain
+      duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused a moment, whilst we stared, Fra Gervasio white-faced and with
+      mouth that gaped in sheer horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For years had he eluded the long arm of the pope's justice,&rdquo; she resumed.
+      &ldquo;And during those years he had never ceased to plot and plan the overthrow
+      of the Pontifical dominion. He was blinded by his arrogance to think that
+      he could stand against the hosts of Heaven. His stubbornness in sin had
+      made him mad. Quem Deus vult perdere...&rdquo; And she waved one of her
+      emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished. &ldquo;Heaven showed me the
+      way, chose me for Its instrument. I sent him word, offering him shelter
+      here at Mondolfo where none would look to find him, assuming it to be the
+      last place to which he would adventure. He was to have come when death
+      took him on the field of Perugia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something here that I did not understand at all. And in like
+      case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his brow, as
+      if to clear thence some veils that clogged his understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was to have come?&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;To shelter?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said she quietly, &ldquo;to death. The papal emissaries had knowledge of
+      it and would have been here to await him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would have betrayed him?&rdquo; Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse, his eyes
+      were burning sombrely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have saved my son,&rdquo; said she, with quiet satisfaction, in a tone
+      that revealed how incontestably right she conceived herself to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood there, and he seemed taller and more gaunt than usual, for he had
+      drawn himself erect to the full of his great height&mdash;and he was a man
+      who usually went bowed. His hands were clenched and the knuckles showed
+      blue-white like marble. His face was very pale and in his temple a little
+      pulse was throbbing visibly. He swayed slightly upon his feet, and the
+      sight of him frightened me a little. He seemed so full of terrible
+      potentialities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I think of vengeance, I picture to myself Fra Gervasio as I beheld
+      him in that hour. Nothing that he could have done would have surprised me.
+      Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn her limb from limb, it would
+      have been no more than from the sight of him I might have expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have said that nothing that he could have done would have surprised me.
+      Rather should I have said that nothing would have surprised me save the
+      thing he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst a man might have counted ten stood he so&mdash;she seeing nothing
+      of the strange transfiguration that had come over him, for her eyes were
+      downcast as ever. Then quite slowly, his hands unclenched, his arms fell
+      limply to his sides, his head sank forward upon his breast, and his figure
+      bowed itself lower than was usual. Quite suddenly, quite softly, almost as
+      a man who swoons, he sank down again into the chair from which he had
+      risen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He set his elbows on the table, and took his head in his hands. A groan
+      escaped him. She heard it, and looked at him in her furtive way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are moved by this knowledge, Fra Gervasio,&rdquo; she said and sighed. &ldquo;I
+      have told you this&mdash;and you, Agostino&mdash;that you may know how
+      deep, how ineradicable is my purpose. You were a votive offering,
+      Agostino; you were vowed to the service of God that your father's life
+      might be spared, years ago, ere you were born. From the very edge of death
+      was your father brought back to life and strength. He would have used that
+      life and that strength to cheat God of the price of His boon to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if,&rdquo; Fra Gervasio questioned almost fiercely, &ldquo;Agostino in the end
+      should have no vocation, should have no call to such a life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him very wistfully, almost pityingly. &ldquo;How should that be?&rdquo;
+       she asked. &ldquo;He was offered to God. And that God accepted the gift, He
+      showed when He gave Giovanni back to life. How, then, could it come to
+      pass that Agostino should have no call? Would God reject that which He had
+      accepted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Gervasio rose again. &ldquo;You go too deep for me, Madonna,&rdquo; he said
+      bitterly. &ldquo;It is not for me to speak of my gifts save reverently and in
+      profound and humble gratitude for that grace by which God bestowed them
+      upon me. But I am accounted something of a casuist. I am a doctor of
+      theology and of canon law, and but for the weak state of my health I
+      should be sitting to-day in the chair of canon law at the University of
+      Pavia. And yet, Madonna, the things you tell me with such assurance make a
+      mock of everything I have ever learnt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Even I, lad as I was, perceived the bitter irony in which he spoke. Not so
+      she. I vow she flushed under what she accounted his praise of her wisdom
+      and divine revelation; for vanity is the last human weakness to be
+      discarded. Then she seemed to recollect herself. She bowed her head very
+      reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is God's grace that reveals to me the truth,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell back a step in his amazement at having been so thoroughly
+      misunderstood. Then he drew away from the table. He looked at her as he
+      would speak, but checked on the thought. He turned, and so, without
+      another word, departed, and left us sitting there together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that we had our talk; or, rather, that she talked, whilst I
+      sat listening. And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more
+      under the spell of which I had more than once that day been on the point
+      of casting off the yoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, after all, you are to discern in what I have written here, between
+      what were my feelings at the time and what are my criticisms of to-day in
+      the light of the riper knowledge to which I have come. The handling of a
+      sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown. Yet was I ready to
+      believe that such a thrill was but a lure of Satan's, as my mother assured
+      me. In deeper matters she might harbour error, as Fra Gervasio's irony had
+      shown me that he believed. But we went that night into no great depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She spent an hour or so in vague discourse upon the joys of Paradise, in
+      showing me the folly of jeopardizing them for the sake of the fleeting
+      vanities of this ephemeral world. She dealt at length upon the love of God
+      for us, and the love which we should bear to Him, and she read to me
+      passages from the book of the Blessed Varano and from Scupoli to add point
+      to her teachings upon the beauty and nobility of a life that is devoted to
+      God's service&mdash;the only service of this world in which nobility can
+      exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she added little stories of martyrs who had suffered for the
+      faith, of the tortures to which they had been subjected, and of the
+      happiness they had felt in actual suffering, of the joy that their very
+      torments had brought them, borne up as they were by their faith and the
+      strength of their love of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was in all this nothing that was new to me, nothing that I did not
+      freely accept and implicitly believe without pausing to judge or
+      criticize. And yet, it was shrewd of her to have plied me then as she did;
+      for thereby, beyond doubt, she checked me upon the point of
+      self-questioning to which that day's happenings were urging me, and she
+      brought me once more obediently to heel and caused me to fix my eyes more
+      firmly than ever beyond the things of this world and upon the glories of
+      the next which I was to make my goal and aim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus came I back within the toils from which I had been for a moment
+      tempted to escape; and what is more, my imagination fired to some touch of
+      ecstasy by those tales of sainted martyrs, I returned willingly to the
+      pietistic thrall, to be held in it more firmly than ever yet before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We parted as we always parted, and when I had kissed her cold hand I went
+      my way to bed. And if I knelt that night to pray that God might watch over
+      poor errant Falcone, it was to the end that Falcone might be brought to
+      see the sin and error of his ways and win to the grace of a happy death
+      when his hour came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. LUISINA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of the four years that followed little mention need be made in these
+      pages, save for one incident whose importance is derived entirely from
+      that which subsequently befell, for at the time it had no meaning for me.
+      Yet since later it was to have much, it is fitting that it should be
+      recorded here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened that a month or so after old Falcone had left us there
+      wandered one noontide into the outer courtyard of the castle two pilgrim
+      fathers, on their way&mdash;as they announced&mdash;from Milan to visit
+      the Holy House at Loreto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my mother's custom to receive all pilgrim wayfarers and beggars in
+      this courtyard at noontide twice in each week to bestow upon them food and
+      alms. Rarely was she, herself, present at that alms-giving; more rarely
+      still was I. It was Fra Gervasio who discharged the office of almoner on
+      the Countess of Mondolfo's behalf. Occasionally the whines and snarls of
+      the motley crowd that gathered there&mdash;for they were not infrequently
+      quarrelsome&mdash;reached us in the maschio tower where we had our
+      apartments. But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in the
+      pillared gallery above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging human
+      mass below, for the concourse was greater than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted,
+      withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off,
+      others again&mdash;and there were many of these&mdash;with hideous running
+      sores, some of which no doubt would be counterfeit&mdash;as I now know&mdash;and
+      contrived with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity in
+      the piteous. All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and, doubtless,
+      verminous. Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one another aside
+      to reach Fra Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply of alms and food
+      should be exhausted ere their turn arrived. Amongst them there was
+      commonly a small sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of these, perhaps,
+      just the hypocrite rogues that I have since discovered many of them to be,
+      though at the time all who wore the scapulary were holy men in my innocent
+      eyes. They were mostly, or so they pretended, bent upon pilgrimages to
+      distant parts, living upon such alms as they could gather on their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the steps of the chapel Fra Gervasio would stand&mdash;gaunt and
+      impassive&mdash;with his posse of attendant grooms behind him. One of the
+      latter, standing nearest to our almoner, held a great sack of broken
+      bread; another presented a wooden, trough-like platter filled with slices
+      of meat, and a third dispensed out of horn cups a poor, thin, and rather
+      sour, but very wholesome wine, which he drew from the skins that were his
+      charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From one to the other were the beggars passed on by Fra Gervasio, and
+      lastly came they back to him, to receive from his hands a piece of money&mdash;a
+      grosso, of which he held the bag himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the day of which I write, as I stood there gazing down upon that mass
+      of misery, marvelling perhaps a little upon the inequality of fortune, and
+      wondering vaguely what God could be about to inflict so much suffering
+      upon certain of His creatures, to cause one to be born into purple and
+      another into rags, my eyes were drawn by the insistent stare of two monks
+      who stood at the back of the crowd with their shoulders to the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their
+      tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the
+      ample sleeves of their brown habits. One of this twain was broader than
+      his companion and very erect of carriage, such as was unusual in a monk.
+      His mouth and the half of his face were covered by a thick brown beard,
+      and athwart his countenance, from under the left eye across his nose and
+      cheek, ran a great livid scar to lose itself in the beard towards the
+      right jaw. His deep-set eyes regarded me so intently that I coloured
+      uncomfortably under their gaze; for accustomed as I was to seclusion, I
+      was easily abashed. I turned away and went slowly along the gallery to the
+      end; and yet I had a feeling that those eyes were following me, and,
+      indeed, casting a swift glance over my shoulder ere I went indoors, I saw
+      that this was so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening at supper I chanced to mention the matter to Fra Gervasio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a big bearded capuchin in the yard at alms-time to-day&mdash;&rdquo;
+       I was beginning, when the friar's knife clattered from his hand, and he
+      looked at me with eyes of positive fear out of a face from which the last
+      drop of blood had abruptly receded. I checked my inquiry at the sight of
+      him thus suddenly disordered, whilst my mother, who, as usual, observed
+      nothing, made a foolish comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The little brothers are never absent, Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This brother was a big brother,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not seemly to make jest of holy men,&rdquo; she reproved me in her
+      chilling voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no thought to jest,&rdquo; I answered soberly. &ldquo;I should never have
+      remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an intentness&mdash;so
+      great that I was unable to bear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her turn to betray emotion. She looked at me full and long&mdash;for
+      once&mdash;and very searchingly. She, too, had grown paler than was her
+      habit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino, what do you tell me?&rdquo; quoth she, and her voice quivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now here was a deal of pother about a capuchin who had stared at the
+      Madonnino of Anguissola! The matter was out of all proportion to the stir
+      it made, and I conveyed in my next words some notion of that opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she stared wistfully. &ldquo;Never think it, Agostino,&rdquo; she besought me.
+      &ldquo;You know not what it may import.&rdquo; And then she turned to Fra Gervasio.
+      &ldquo;Who was this mendicant?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had by now recovered from his erstwhile confusion. But he was still
+      pale, and I observed that his hand trembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have been one of the two little brothers of St. Francis on their
+      way, they said, from Milan to Loreto on a pilgrimage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not those you told me are resting here until to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From his face I saw that he would have denied it had it lain within his
+      power to utter a deliberate falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are the same,&rdquo; he answered in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose. &ldquo;I must see this friar,&rdquo; she announced, and never in all my life
+      had I beheld in her such a display of emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the morning, then,&rdquo; said Fra Gervasio. &ldquo;It is after sunset,&rdquo; he
+      explained. &ldquo;They have retired, and their rule...&rdquo; He left the sentence
+      unfinished, but he had said enough to be understood by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank back to her chair, folded her hands in her lap and fell into
+      meditation. The faintest of flushes crept into her wax-like cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it should be a sign!&rdquo; she murmured raptly, and then she turned again
+      to Fra Gervasio. &ldquo;You heard Agostino say that he could not bear this
+      friar's gaze. You remember, brother, how a pilgrim appeared near San
+      Rufino to the nurse of Saint Francis, and took from her arms the child
+      that he might bless it ere once more he vanished? If this should be a sign
+      such as that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She clasped her hands together fervently. &ldquo;I must see this friar ere he
+      departs again,&rdquo; she said to the staring, dumbfounded Fra Gervasio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, then, I understood her emotion. All her life she had prayed for a
+      sign of grace for herself or for me, and she believed that here at last
+      was something that might well be discovered upon inquiry to be an answer
+      to her prayer. This capuchin who had stared at me from the courtyard
+      became at once to her mind&mdash;so ill-balanced upon such matters&mdash;a
+      supernatural visitant, harbinger, as it were, of my future saintly glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though she rose betimes upon the morrow, to see the holy man ere he
+      fared forth again, she was not early enough. In the courtyard whither she
+      descended to make her way to the outhouse where the two were lodged, she
+      met Fra Gervasio, who was astir before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The friar?&rdquo; she cried anxiously, filled already with forebodings. &ldquo;The
+      holy man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervasio stood before her, pale and trembling. &ldquo;You are too late, Madonna.
+      Already he is gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She observed his agitation now, and beheld in it a reflection of her own,
+      springing from the selfsame causes. &ldquo;Oh, it was a sign indeed!&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;And you have come to realize it, too, I see.&rdquo; Next, in a burst
+      of gratitude that was almost pitiful upon such slight foundation, &ldquo;Oh,
+      blessed Agostino!&rdquo; she cried out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the momentary exaltation fell from that woman of sorrows. &ldquo;This but
+      makes my burden heavier, my responsibility greater,&rdquo; she wailed. &ldquo;God help
+      me bear it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus passed that incident so trifling in itself and so misunderstood by
+      her. But it was never forgotten, and from time to time she would allude to
+      it as the sign which had been vouchsafed me and for which great should be
+      my thankfulness and my joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Save for that, in the four years that followed, time flowed an uneventful
+      course within the four walls of the big citadel&mdash;for beyond those
+      four walls I was never once permitted to set foot; and although from time
+      to time I heard rumours of doings in the town itself, of the affairs of
+      the State whereof I was by right of birth the tyrant, and of the greater
+      business of the big world beyond, yet so trained and schooled was I that I
+      had no great desire for a nearer acquaintance with that world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain curiosity did at times beset me, spurred not so much by the
+      little that I heard as by things that I read in such histories as my
+      studies demanded I should read. For even the lives of saints, and Holy
+      Writ itself, afford their student glimpses of the world. But this
+      curiosity I came to look upon as a lure of the flesh, and to resist.
+      Blessed are they who are out of all contact with the world, since to them
+      salvation comes more easily; so I believed implicitly, as I was taught by
+      my mother and by Fra Gervasio at my mother's bidding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as the years passed under such influences as had been at work upon me
+      from the cradle, influences which had known no check save that brief one
+      afforded by Gino Falcone, I became perforce devout and pious from very
+      inclination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joyous transports were afforded me by the study of the life of that Saint
+      Luigi of the noble Mantuan House of Gonzaga&mdash;in whom I saw an ideal
+      to be emulated, since he seemed to me to be much in my own case and of my
+      own estate&mdash;who had counted the illusory greatness of this world well
+      lost so that he might win the bliss of Paradise. Similarly did I take
+      delight in the Life, written by Tommaso da Celano, of that blessed son of
+      Pietro Bernardone, the merchant of Assisi, that Francis who became the
+      Troubadour of the Lord and sang so sweetly the praises of His Creation. My
+      heart would swell within me and I would weep hot and very bitter tears
+      over the narrative of the early and sinful part of his life, as we may
+      weep to see a beloved brother beset by deadly perils. And greater, hence,
+      was the joy, the exultation, and finally the sweet peace and comfort that
+      I gathered from the tale of his conversion, of his wondrous works, and of
+      the Three Companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these pages&mdash;so lively was my young imagination and so wrought
+      upon by what I read&mdash;I suffered with him again his agonies of hope, I
+      thrilled with some of the joy of his stupendous ecstasies, and I almost
+      envied him the signal mark of Heavenly grace that had imprinted the
+      stigmata upon his living body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that concerned him, too, I read: his Little Flowers, his Testament,
+      The Mirror of Perfection; but my greatest delight was derived from his
+      Song of the Creatures, which I learnt by heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oftentimes since have I wondered and sought to determine whether it was
+      the piety of those lauds that charmed me spiritually, or an appeal to my
+      senses made by the beauty of the lines and the imagery which the Assisian
+      used in his writings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Similarly I am at a loss to determine whether the pleasure I took in
+      reading of the joyous, perfumed life of that other stigmatized saint, the
+      blessed Catherine of Siena, was not a sensuous pleasure rather than the
+      soul-ecstasy I supposed it at the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as I wept over the early sins of St. Francis, so too did I weep over
+      the rhapsodical Confessions of St. Augustine, that mighty theologian after
+      whom I had been named, and whose works&mdash;after those concerning St.
+      Francis&mdash;exerted a great influence upon me in those early days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus did I grow in grace until Fra Gervasio, who watched me narrowly and
+      anxiously, seemed more at ease, setting aside the doubts that earlier had
+      tormented him lest I should be forced upon a life for which I had no
+      vocation. He grew more tender and loving towards me, as if something of
+      pity lurked within the strong affection in which he held me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, meanwhile, as I grew in grace of spirit, so too did I grow in grace
+      of body, waxing tall and very strong, which would have been nowise
+      surprising but that those nurtured as was I are seldom lusty. The mind
+      feeding overmuch upon the growing body is apt to sap its strength and
+      vigour, besides which there was the circumstance that I continued
+      throughout those years a life almost of confinement, deprived of all the
+      exercises by which youth is brought to its fine flower of strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I was approaching my eighteenth year there befell another incident,
+      which, trivial in itself, yet has its place in my development and so
+      should have its place within these confessions. Nor did I judge it trivial
+      at the time&mdash;nor were trivial the things that followed out of it&mdash;trivial
+      though it may seem to me to-day as I look back upon it through all the
+      murk of later life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giojoso, the seneschal, of whom I have spoken, had a son, a great
+      raw-boned lad whom he would have trained as an amanuensis, but who was one
+      of Nature's dunces out of which there is nothing useful to be made. He was
+      strong-limbed, however, and he was given odd menial duties to perform
+      about the castle. But these he shirked where possible, as he had shirked
+      his lessons in earlier days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it happened that I was walking one spring morning&mdash;it was in May
+      of that year '44 of which I am now writing&mdash;on the upper of the three
+      spacious terraces that formed the castle garden. It was but an
+      indifferently tended place, and yet perhaps the more agreeable on that
+      account, since Nature had been allowed to have her prodigal, luxuriant
+      way. It is true that the great boxwood hedges needed trimming, and that
+      weeds were sprouting between the stones of the flights of steps that led
+      from terrace to terrace; but the place was gay and fragrant with wild
+      blossoms, and the great trees afforded generous shade, and the long rank
+      grass beneath them made a pleasant couch to lie on during the heat of the
+      day in summer. The lowest terrace of all was in better case. It was a
+      well-planted and well-tended orchard, where I got many a colic in my
+      earlier days from a gluttony of figs and peaches whose complete ripening I
+      was too impatient to await.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked there, then, one morning quite early on the upper terrace
+      immediately under the castle wall, and alternately I read from the De
+      Civitate Dei which I had brought with me, alternately mused upon the
+      matter of my reading. Suddenly I was disturbed by a sound of voices just
+      below me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boxwood hedge, being twice my height and fully two feet thick,
+      entirely screened the speakers from my sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two voices, and one of these, angry and threatening, I
+      recognized for that of Rinolfo&mdash;Messer Giojoso's graceless son; the
+      other, a fresh young feminine voice, was entirely unknown to me; indeed it
+      was the first girl's voice I could recall having heard in all my eighteen
+      years, and the sound was as pleasantly strange as it was strangely
+      pleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood quite still, to listen to its expostulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a cruel fellow, Ser Rinolfo, and Madonna the Countess shall be
+      told of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed a crackling of twigs and a rush of heavy feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have something else of which to tell Madonna's beatitude,&rdquo;
+       threatened the harsh voice of Rinolfo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That and his advances were answered by a frightened screech, a screech
+      that moved rapidly to the right as it was emitted. There came more
+      snapping of twigs, a light scurrying sound followed by a heavier one, and
+      lastly a panting of breath and a soft pattering of running feet upon the
+      steps that led up to the terrace where I walked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I moved forward rapidly to the opening in the hedge where these steps
+      debouched, and no sooner had I appeared there than a soft, lithe body
+      hurtled against me so suddenly that my arms mechanically went round it, my
+      right hand still holding the De Civitate Dei, forefinger enclosed within
+      its pages to mark the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two moist dark eyes looked up appealingly into mine out of a frightened
+      but very winsome, sun-tinted face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Madonnino!&rdquo; she panted. &ldquo;Protect me! Save me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Below us, checked midway in his furious ascent, halted Rinolfo, his big
+      face red with anger, scowling up at me in sudden doubt and resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was not only extraordinary in itself, but singularly
+      disturbing to me. Who the girl was, or whence she came, I had no thought
+      or notion as I surveyed her. She would be of about my own age, or perhaps
+      a little younger, and from her garb it was plain that she belonged to the
+      peasant class. She wore a spotless bodice of white linen, which but
+      indifferently concealed the ripening swell of her young breast. Her
+      petticoat, of dark red homespun, stopped short above her bare brown
+      ankles, and her little feet were naked. Her brown hair, long and abundant,
+      was still fastened at the nape of her slim neck, but fell loose beyond
+      that, having been disturbed, no doubt, in her scuffle with Rinolfo. Her
+      little mouth was deeply red and it held strong young teeth that were as
+      white as milk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have since wondered whether she was as beautiful as I deemed her in that
+      moment. For it must be remembered that mine was the case of the son of
+      Filippo Balducci&mdash;related by Messer Boccaccio in the merry tales of
+      his Decamerone 1&mdash;who had come to years of adolescence without ever
+      having beheld womanhood, so that the first sight of it in the streets of
+      Florence affected him so oddly that he vexed his sire with foolish
+      questions and still more foolish prayers.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the Introduction to the Fourth Day.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      So was it now with me. In all my eighteen years I had by my mother's
+      careful contriving never set eyes upon a woman of an age inferior to her
+      own. And&mdash;consider me foolish if you will but so it is&mdash;I do not
+      think that it had occurred to me that they existed, or else, if they did,
+      that in youth they differed materially from what in age I found them. Thus
+      I had come to look upon women as just feeble, timid creatures, over-prone
+      to gossip, tears, and lamentations, and good for very little that I could
+      perceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been unable to understand for what reason it was that San Luigi of
+      Gonzaga had from years of discretion never allowed his eyes to rest upon a
+      woman; nor could I see wherein lay the special merit attributed to this.
+      And certain passages in the Confessions of St. Augustine and in the early
+      life of St. Francis of Assisi bewildered me and left me puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now, quite suddenly, it was as if revelation had come to me. It was as
+      if the Book of Life had at last been opened for me, and at a glance I had
+      read one of its dazzling pages. So that whether this brown peasant girl
+      was beautiful or not, beautiful she seemed to me with the radiant beauty
+      that is attributed to the angels of Paradise. Nor did I doubt that she
+      would be as holy, for to see in beauty a mark of divine favour is not
+      peculiar only to the ancient Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And because of the appeal of this beauty&mdash;real or supposed&mdash;I
+      was very ready with my protection, since I felt that protection must carry
+      with it certain rights of ownership which must be very sweet and were
+      certainly desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding her, therefore, within the shelter of my arms, where in her
+      heedless innocence she had flung herself, and by very instinct stroking
+      with one hand her little brown head to soothe her fears, I became
+      truculent for the first time in my new-found manhood, and boldly
+      challenged her pursuer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is this, Rinolfo?&rdquo; I demanded. &ldquo;Why do you plague her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She broke up my snares,&rdquo; he answered sullenly, &ldquo;and let the birds go
+      free.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What snares? What birds?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a cruel beast,&rdquo; she shrilled. &ldquo;And he will lie to you, Madonnino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he does I'll break the bones of his body,&rdquo; I promised in a tone
+      entirely new to me. And then to him&mdash;&ldquo;The truth now, poltroon!&rdquo; I
+      admonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I got the story out of them: how Rinolfo had scattered grain in a
+      little clearing in the garden, and all about it had set twigs that were
+      heavily smeared with viscum; that he set this trap almost daily, and daily
+      took a great number of birds whose necks he wrung and had them cooked for
+      him with rice by his silly mother; that it was a sin in any case to take
+      little birds by such cowardly means, but that since amongst these birds
+      there were larks and thrushes and plump blackbirds and other sweet
+      musicians of the air, whose innocent lives were spent in singing the
+      praises of God, his sin became a hideous sacrilege.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally I learnt that coming that morning upon half a score of poor
+      fluttering terrified birds held fast in Rinolfo's viscous snares, the
+      little girl had given them their liberty and had set about breaking up the
+      springes. At this occupation he had caught her, and there is no doubt that
+      he would have taken a rude vengeance but for the sanctuary which she had
+      found in me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when I had heard, behold me for the first time indulging the
+      prerogative that was mine by right of birth, and dispensing justice at
+      Mondolfo like the lord of life and death that I was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, Rinolfo,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;will set no more snares here at Mondolfo, nor
+      will you ever again enter these gardens under pain of my displeasure and
+      its consequences. And as for this child, if you dare to molest her for
+      what has happened now, or if you venture so much as to lay a finger upon
+      her at any time and I have word of it, I shall deal with you as with a
+      felon. Now go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went straight to his father, the seneschal, with a lying tale of my
+      having threatened him with violence and forbidden him ever to enter the
+      garden again because he had caught me there with Luisina&mdash;as the
+      child was called&mdash;in my arms. And Messer Giojoso, full of parental
+      indignation at this gross treatment of his child, and outraged chastity at
+      the notion of a young man of churchly aims, as were mine, being in
+      perversive dalliance with that peasant-wench, repaired straight to my
+      mother with the story of it, which I doubt not lost nothing by its
+      repetition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile I abode there with Luisina. I was in no haste to let her go. Her
+      presence pleased me in some subtle, quite indefinable manner; and my sense
+      of beauty, which, always strong, had hitherto lain dormant within me, was
+      awake at last and was finding nourishment in the graces of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat down upon the topmost of the terrace steps, and made her sit beside
+      me. This she did after some demur about the honour of it and her own
+      unworthiness, objections which I brushed peremptorily aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we sat there on that May morning, quite close together, for which there
+      was, after all, no need, seeing that the steps were of a noble width. At
+      our feet spread the garden away down the flight of terraces to end in the
+      castle's grey, buttressed wall. But from where we sat we could look beyond
+      this, our glance meeting the landscape a mile or so away with the waters
+      of the Taro glittering in the sunshine, and the Apennines, all hazy, for
+      an ultimate background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took her hand, which she relinquished to me quite freely and frankly
+      with an innocence as great as my own; and I asked her who she was and how
+      she came to Mondolfo. It was then that I learnt that her name was Luisina,
+      that she was the daughter of one of the women employed in the castle
+      kitchen, who had brought her to help there a week ago from Borgo Taro,
+      where she had been living with an aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day the notion of the Tyrant of Mondolfo sitting&mdash;almost coram
+      populo&mdash;on the steps of the garden of his castle, clasping the hand
+      of the daughter of one of his scullions, is grotesque and humiliating. At
+      the time the thought never presented itself to me at all, and had it done
+      so it would have troubled me no whit. She was my first glimpse of fresh
+      young maidenhood, and I was filled with pleasant interest and desirous of
+      more acquaintance with this phenomenon. Beyond that I did not go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her frankly that she was very beautiful. Whereupon she looked at me
+      with suddenly startled eyes that were full of fearful questionings, and
+      made to draw her hand from mine. Unable to understand her fears, and
+      seeking to reassure her, to convince her that in me she had a friend, one
+      who would ever protect her from the brutalities of all the Rinolfos in the
+      world, I put an arm about her shoulders and drew her closer to me, gently
+      and protectingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She suffered it very stonily, like a poor fascinated thing that is robbed
+      by fear of its power to resist the evil that it feels enfolding it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Madonnino!&rdquo; she whispered fearfully, and sighed. &ldquo;Nay, you must not.
+      It... it is not good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not good?&rdquo; quoth I, and it was just so that that fool of a son of
+      Balducci's must have protested in the story when he was told by his father
+      that it was not good to look on women. &ldquo;Nay, now, but it is good to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they say you are to be a priest,&rdquo; she added, which seemed to me a
+      very foolish and inconsequent thing to add.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then? And what of that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me again with those timid eyes of hers. &ldquo;You should be at
+      your studies,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said I, and smiled. &ldquo;I am studying a new subject.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonnino, it is not a subject whose study makes good priests,&rdquo; she
+      announced, and puzzled me again by the foolish inconsequence of her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Already, indeed, she began to disappoint me. Saving my mother&mdash;whom I
+      did not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether apart
+      from what little humanity I had known until then&mdash;I had found that
+      foolishness was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its cackle
+      to a goose; and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by Fra
+      Gervasio. Now here in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had
+      discovered a phase of womanhood unsuspected and exceptional. She was
+      driving me to conclude, however, that I had been mistaken, and that here
+      was just a pretty husk containing a very trivial spirit, whose
+      companionship must prove a dull affair when custom should have staled the
+      first impression of her fresh young beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is plain now that I did her an injustice, for there was about her words
+      none of the inconsequence I imagined. The fault was in myself and in the
+      profound ignorance of the ways of men and women which went hand in hand
+      with my deep but ineffectual learning in the ways of saints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our entertainment, however, was not destined to go further. For at the
+      moment in which I puzzled over her words and sought to attach to them some
+      intelligent meaning, there broke from behind us a scream that flung us
+      apart, as startled as if we had been conscious indeed of guilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We looked round to find that it had been uttered by my mother. Not ten
+      yards away she stood, a tall black figure against the grey background of
+      the lichened wall, with Giojoso in attendance and Rinolfo slinking behind
+      his father, leering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. REBELLION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sight of my mother startled me more than I can say. It filled me with
+      a positive dread of things indefinable. Never before had I seen her coldly
+      placid countenance so strangely disordered, and her unwonted aspect it
+      must have been that wrought so potently upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No longer was she the sorrowful spectre, white-faced, with downcast eyes
+      and level, almost inanimate, tones. Her cheeks were flushed unnaturally,
+      her lips were quivering, and angry fires were smouldering in her deep-set
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly she came down to us, seeming almost to glide over the ground. Not
+      me she addressed, but poor Luisina; and her voice was hoarse with an awful
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, wench?&rdquo; quoth she. &ldquo;What make you here in Mondolfo?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Luisina had risen and stood swaying there, very white and with averted
+      eyes, her hands clasping and unclasping. Her lips moved; but she was too
+      terrified to answer. It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my
+      mother of the girl's name and condition. And upon learning it her anger
+      seemed to increase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A kitchen-wench!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;O horror!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And quite suddenly, as if by inspiration, scarce knowing what I said or
+      that I spoke at all, I answered her out of the store of the theological
+      learning with which she had had me stuffed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all equals in the sight of God, madam mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flashed me a glance of anger, of pious anger than which none can be
+      more terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blasphemer!&rdquo; she denounced me. &ldquo;What has God to do with this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to
+      offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as for that wanton,&rdquo; she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso, &ldquo;let
+      her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo. Set the grooms to
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But upon that command of hers I leapt of a sudden to my feet, a tightening
+      about my heart, and beset by a certain breathlessness that turned me pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here again, it seemed, was to be repeated&mdash;though with methods a
+      thousand times more barbarous and harsh&mdash;the wrong that was done
+      years ago in the case of poor Gino Falcone. And the reason for it in this
+      instance was not even dimly apparent to me. Falcone I had loved; indeed,
+      in my eighteen years of life he was the only human being who had knocked
+      for admission upon the portals of my heart. Him they had driven forth. And
+      now, here was a child&mdash;the fairest creature of God's that until that
+      hour I had beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and
+      desirable, and whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone. Her
+      too they would drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that revolted
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection
+      was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so
+      fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of
+      the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is
+      jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever
+      known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for the
+      love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding the
+      blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle mandates
+      of the God Incarnate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at
+      peace in pharisaic self-righteousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone,
+      and let her cruel, pietistic will be done. I had grown since then, and I
+      had ripened more than I was aware. It remained for this moment to reveal
+      to me the extent. Besides, the subtle influence of sex&mdash;all
+      unconscious of it as I was&mdash;stirred me now to prove my new-found
+      manhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold
+      and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have
+      been bidden. But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them
+      dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him
+      will I kill with these two hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst them
+      by those words. Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the cause
+      of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother, all
+      a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but spoke no
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for
+      the first time in my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; I demanded of Giojoso. &ldquo;For what do you wait? About it, sir, and
+      do as my mother has commanded you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in ludicrous
+      bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this path so
+      suddenly grown thorny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ma&mdash;madonna!&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She swallowed hard, and spoke at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you defy my will, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, madam mother, I am enforcing it. Your will shall be
+      done; your order shall be given. I insist upon it. But it shall lie with
+      the discretion of the grooms whether they obey you. Am I to blame if they
+      turn cowards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      O, I had found myself at last, and I was making a furious, joyous use of
+      the discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That... that were to make a mock of me and my authority,&rdquo; she protested.
+      She was still rather helpless, rather breathless and confused, like one
+      who has suddenly been hurled into cold water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you fear that, madam, perhaps you had better countermand your order.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the girl to remain in Mondolfo against my wishes? Are you so... so
+      lost to shame?&rdquo; A returning note of warmth in her accents warned me that
+      she was collecting herself to deal with the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said I, and I looked at Luisina, who stood there so pale and
+      tearful. &ldquo;I think that for her own sake, poor maid, it were better that
+      she went, since you desire it. But she shall not be whipped hence like a
+      stray dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, child,&rdquo; I said to her, as gently as I could. &ldquo;Go pack, and quit
+      this home of misery. And be easy. For if any man in Mondolfo attempts to
+      hasten your going, he shall reckon with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laid a hand for an instant in kindliness and friendliness upon her
+      shoulder. &ldquo;Poor little Luisina,&rdquo; said I, sighing. But she shrank and
+      trembled under my touch. &ldquo;Pity me a little, for they will not permit me
+      any friends, and who is friendless is indeed pitiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, whether the phrase touched her, so that her simple little nature
+      was roused and she shook off what self-control she had ever learnt, or
+      whether she felt secure enough in my protection to dare proclaim her mind
+      before them all, she caught my hand, and, stooping, kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Madonnino!&rdquo; she faltered, and her tears showered upon that hand of
+      mine. &ldquo;God reward you your sweet thought for me. I shall pray for you,
+      Madonnino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do, Luisina,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I begin to think I need it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, indeed!&rdquo; said my mother very sombrely. And as she spoke, Luisina,
+      as if her fears were reawakened, turned suddenly and went quickly along
+      the terrace, past Rinolfo, who in that moment smiled viciously, and round
+      the angle of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What... what are my orders, Madonna?&rdquo; quoth the wretched seneschal,
+      reminding her that all had not yet been resolved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her eyes to the ground, and folded her hands. She was by now
+      quite composed again, her habitual sorrowful self.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let be,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Let the wench depart. So that she goes we may count
+      ourselves fortunate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortunate, I think, is she,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Fortunate to return to the world
+      beyond all this&mdash;the world of life and love that God made and that
+      St. Francis praises. I do not think he would have praised Mondolfo, for I
+      greatly doubt that God had a hand in making it as it is to-day. It is
+      too... too arid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      O, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you mad, Agostino?&rdquo; gasped my mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that I am growing sane,&rdquo; said I very sadly. She flashed me one of
+      her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must talk,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That girl...&rdquo; And then she checked. &ldquo;Come with
+      me,&rdquo; she bade me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look for
+      my friend Rinolfo. He was moving stealthily away, following the road
+      Luisina had taken. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at her,
+      to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay! You there! Rinolfo!&rdquo; I called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due. Indeed, I
+      think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have been
+      held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come to more
+      manhood than that of the cassock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here,&rdquo; I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat
+      the order more peremptorily. At last he turned and came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What now, Agostino?&rdquo; cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my sleeve
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting
+      uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen. Over his shoulder I
+      had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you smiled just now,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heh! By Bacchus!&rdquo; said he impudently, as who would say: &ldquo;How could I help
+      smiling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell me why you smiled?&rdquo; I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heh! By Bacchus!&rdquo; said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a
+      barb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you answer me?&rdquo; I roared, and under my display of anger he looked
+      truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo; came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power
+      of habit that for a moment it controlled me and subdued my violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless I went on, &ldquo;You smiled to see your spite succeed. You smiled
+      to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you smiled to see
+      your broken snares avenged. And you were following after her no doubt to
+      tell her all this and to smile again. This is all so, it is not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heh! By Bacchus!&rdquo; said he for the third time, and at that my patience
+      gave out utterly. Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and
+      belt and shaken him savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you answer me like a fool?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Must you be taught sense and a
+      proper respect of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino! Agostino!&rdquo; wailed my mother. &ldquo;Help, Ser Giojoso! Do you not see
+      that he is mad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not believe that it was in my mind to do the fellow any grievous
+      hurt. But he was so ill-advised in that moment as to attempt to defend
+      himself. He rashly struck at one of the arms that held him, and by the act
+      drove me into a fury ungovernable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dog!&rdquo; I snarled at him from between clenched teeth. &ldquo;Would you raise
+      your hand to me? Am I your lord, or am I dirt of your own kind? Go learn
+      submission.&rdquo; And I flung him almost headlong down the flight of steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were twelve of them and all of stone with edges still sharp enough
+      though blunted here and there by time. The fool had never suspected in me
+      the awful strength which until that hour I had never suspected in myself.
+      Else, perhaps, there had been fewer insolent shrugs, fewer foolish
+      answers, and, last of all, no attempt to defy me physically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He screamed as I flung him; my mother screamed; and Giojoso screamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that there was a panic-stricken silence whilst he went thudding and
+      bumping to the bottom of the flight. I did not greatly care if I killed
+      him. But he was fortunate enough to get no worse hurt than a broken leg,
+      which should keep him out of mischief for a season and teach him respect
+      for me for all time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father scuttled down the steps to the assistance of that precious son,
+      who lay moaning where he had fallen, the angle at which the half of one of
+      his legs stood to the rest of it, plainly announcing the nature of his
+      punishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My mother swept me indoors, loading me with reproaches as we went. She
+      dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra
+      Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room. I went very
+      obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen
+      from me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight
+      falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could help
+      to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided me and
+      then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the table's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard some
+      rumour of what had chanced. His keen eyes went from me to my mother and
+      then back again to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has not happened?&rdquo; wailed my mother. &ldquo;Agostino is possessed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He knit his brows. &ldquo;Possessed?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, possessed&mdash;possessed of devils. He has been violent. He has
+      broken poor Rinolfo's leg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Gervasio, and turned to me frowning with full tutorial
+      sternness. &ldquo;And what have you to say, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that I am sorry,&rdquo; answered I, rebellious once more. &ldquo;I had hoped to
+      break his dirty neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear him!&rdquo; cried my mother. &ldquo;It is the end of the world, Gervasio.
+      The boy is possessed, I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the cause of your quarrel?&rdquo; quoth the friar, his manner still
+      more stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quarrel?&rdquo; quoth I, throwing back my head and snorting audibly. &ldquo;I do not
+      quarrel with Rinolfos. I chastise them when they are insolent or displease
+      me. This one did both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He halted before me, erect and very stern&mdash;indeed almost threatening.
+      And I began to grow afraid; for, after all, I had a kindness for Gervasio,
+      and I would not willingly engage in a quarrel with him. Yet here I was
+      determined to carry through this thing as I had begun it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my mother who saved the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; she moaned, &ldquo;there is wicked blood in him. He has the abominable
+      pride that was the ruin and downfall of his father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that was not the way to make an ally of Fra Gervasio. It did the very
+      opposite. It set him instantly on my side, in antagonism to the abuser of
+      my father's memory, a memory which he, poor man, still secretly revered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sternness fell away from him. He looked at her and sighed. Then, with
+      bowed head, and hands clasped behind him, he moved away from me a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let us judge rashly,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Perhaps Agostino received some
+      provocation. Let us hear...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you shall hear,&rdquo; she promised tearfully, exultant to prove him wrong.
+      &ldquo;You shall hear a yet worse abomination that was the cause of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And out she poured the story that Rinolfo and his father had run to tell
+      her&mdash;of how I had shown the fellow violence in the first instance
+      because he had surprised me with Luisina in my arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The friar's face grew dark and grave as he listened. But ere she had quite
+      done, unable longer to contain myself, I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that he lied like the muckworm that he is,&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;And it
+      increases my regrets that I did not break his neck as I intended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lied?&rdquo; quoth she, her eyes wide open in amazement&mdash;not at the
+      fact, but at the audacity of what she conceived my falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not impossible,&rdquo; said Fra Gervasio. &ldquo;What is your story, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told it&mdash;how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had
+      released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and how
+      in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for shelter
+      and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out of that
+      garden, and never set foot in it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; I ended, &ldquo;you know all the violence that I showed him, and the
+      reason for it. If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall not
+      believe you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed...&rdquo; began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness. But my
+      mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lies, Gervasio. He lies shamelessly. O, into what a morass of sin has
+      he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper! Have I not said that he is
+      possessed? We shall need the exorcist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness,&rdquo; I
+      answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar, to
+      have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. &ldquo;Agostino, I am your mother,&rdquo; she
+      reminded me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,&rdquo; answered
+      I, utterly reckless now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at Fra
+      Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. &ldquo;Is he... is he perchance
+      bewitched?&rdquo; she asked the friar, quite seriously. &ldquo;Do you think that any
+      spells might have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are at cross purposes here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Agostino does not lie. For that
+      I will answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them&mdash;that I saw them with
+      these two eyes&mdash;sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his
+      arm about her. Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said I ever a word of that?&rdquo; I appealed me to the friar. &ldquo;Why, that was
+      after Rinolfo left us. My tale never got so far. It is quite true. I did
+      sit beside her. The child was troubled. I comforted her. Where was the
+      harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The harm?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;And you had your arm about her&mdash;and you to be
+      a priest one day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not, pray?&rdquo; quoth I. &ldquo;Is this some new sin that you have
+      discovered&mdash;or that you have kept hidden from me until now? To
+      console the afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our
+      fellow-creatures an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself. I was
+      performing both. Am I to be abused for that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me very searchingly, seeking in my countenance&mdash;as I now
+      know&mdash;some trace of irony or guile. Finding none, he turned to my
+      mother. He was very solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna,&rdquo; he said quietly, &ldquo;I think that Agostino is nearer to being a
+      saint than either you or I will ever get.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him, first in surprise, then very sadly. Slowly she shook
+      her head. &ldquo;Unhappily for him there is another arbiter of saintship, Who
+      sees deeper than do you, Gervasio.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed his head. &ldquo;Better not to look deep enough than to do as you seem
+      in danger of doing, Madonna, and by looking too deep imagine things which
+      do not exist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you will defend him against reason even,&rdquo; she complained. &ldquo;His anger
+      exists. His thirst to kill&mdash;to stamp himself with the brand of Cain&mdash;exists.
+      He confesses that himself. His insubordination to me you have seen for
+      yourself; and that again is sin, for it is ordained that we shall honour
+      our parents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O!&rdquo; she moaned. &ldquo;My authority is all gone. He is beyond my control. He
+      has shaken off the reins by which I sought to guide him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had done well to have taken my advice a year ago, Madonna. Even now
+      it is not too late. Let him go to Pavia, to the Sapienza, to study his
+      humanities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out into the world!&rdquo; she cried in horror. &ldquo;O, no, no! I have sheltered
+      him here so carefully!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you cannot shelter him for ever,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He must go out into the
+      world some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He need not,&rdquo; she faltered. &ldquo;If the call were strong enough within him, a
+      convent...&rdquo; She left her sentence unfinished, and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, Agostino,&rdquo; she bade me. &ldquo;Fra Gervasio and I must talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went reluctantly, since in the matter of their talk none could have had
+      a greater interest than I, seeing that my fate stood in the balance of it.
+      But I went, none the less, and her last words to me as I was departing
+      were an injunction that I should spend the time until I should take up my
+      studies for the day with Fra Gervasio in seeking forgiveness for the
+      morning's sins and grace to do better in the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. FRA GERVASIO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I did not again see my mother that day, nor did she sup with us that
+      evening. I was told by Fra Gervasio that on my account was she in retreat,
+      praying for light and guidance in the thing that must be determined
+      concerning me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I withdrew early to my little bedroom overlooking the gardens, a room that
+      had more the air of a monastic cell than a bedchamber fitting the estate
+      of the Lord of Mondolfo. The walls were whitewashed, and besides the
+      crucifix that hung over my bed, their only decoration was a crude painting
+      of St. Augustine disputing with the little boy on the seashore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For bed I had a plain hard pallet, and the room contained, in addition, a
+      wooden chair, a stool upon which was set a steel basin with its ewer for
+      my ablutions, and a cupboard for the few sombre black garments I possessed&mdash;for
+      the amiable vanity of raiment usual in young men of my years had never yet
+      assailed me; I had none to emulate in that respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got me to bed, blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep. But
+      sleep was playing truant from me. Long I lay there surveying the events of
+      that day&mdash;the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery of
+      myself; the most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which,
+      although I scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted love and
+      battle, the strongest meats that are in the dish of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and putting together
+      pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softly opened, and I
+      started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taper which he
+      sheltered with one hand, so that the light of it was thrown upwards into
+      his pale, gaunt face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh!&rdquo; he admonished me, a finger to his lips. He advanced to my side, set
+      down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of my bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie down again, my son,&rdquo; he bade me. &ldquo;I have something to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet to
+      my chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna has decided,&rdquo; he informed me then. &ldquo;She fears that having once
+      resisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and that
+      to keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her. Therefore she has
+      resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A faint excitement began to stir in me. To leave Mondolfo&mdash;to go out
+      into that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with my fellow-man,
+      with youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens like Luisina, to see
+      cities and the ways of cities; here indeed was matter for excitement. Yet
+      it was an excitement not altogether pleasurable; for with my very natural
+      curiosity, and with my eagerness to have it gratified, were blended
+      certain fears imbibed from the only quality of reading that had been mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The world was an evil place in which temptations seethed, and through
+      which it was difficult to come unscathed. Therefore, I feared the world
+      and the adventuring beyond the shelter of the walls of the castle of
+      Mondolfo; and yet I desired to judge for myself the evil of which I read,
+      the evil which in moments of doubt I even permitted myself to question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My reasoning followed the syllogism that God being good and God having
+      created the world, it was not possible that the creation should be evil.
+      It was well enough to say that the devil was loose in it. But that was not
+      to say that the devil had created it; and it would be necessary to prove
+      this ere it could be established that it was evil in itself&mdash;as many
+      theologians appeared to seek to show&mdash;and a place to be avoided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the question that very frequently arose in my mind, ultimately to
+      be dismissed as a lure of Satan's to imperil my poor soul. It battled for
+      existence now amid my fears; and it gained some little ascendancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And whither am I to go?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;To Pavia, or to the University of
+      Bologna?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had my advice been heeded,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;one or the other would have been
+      your goal. But your mother took counsel with Messer Arcolano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged, and there was contempt in the lines of his mouth. He
+      distrusted Arcolano, the regular cleric who was my mother's confessor and
+      spiritual adviser, exerting over her a very considerable influence. She,
+      herself, had admitted that it was this Arcolano who had induced her to
+      that horrid traffic in my father's life and liberty which she was
+      mercifully spared from putting into effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Messer Arcolano,&rdquo; he resumed after a pause, &ldquo;has a good friend in
+      Piacenza, a pedagogue, a doctor of civil and canon law, a man who, he
+      says, is very learned and very pious, named Astorre Fifanti. I have heard
+      of this Fifanti, and I do not at all agree with Messer Arcolano. I have
+      said so. But your mother...&rdquo; He broke off. &ldquo;It is decided that you go to
+      him at once, to take up your study of the humanities under his tutelage,
+      and that you abide with him until you are of an age for ordination, which
+      your mother hopes will be very soon. Indeed, it is her wish that you
+      should enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and your novitiate next year,
+      to fit you for the habit of St. Augustine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hear
+      what of my own accord I might have to urge. But my mind was incapable of
+      travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the world to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from the
+      idea to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than my mere
+      priesthood had been spoken of. So I lay there without thinking of any
+      words in which to answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little. &ldquo;Agostino,&rdquo; he said
+      presently, &ldquo;you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a step whose
+      import you may never fully have considered. I have been your tutor, and
+      your rearing has been my charge. That charge I have faithfully carried out
+      as was ordained me, but not as I would have carried it out had I been free
+      to follow my heart and my conscience in the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mind
+      that you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your own
+      inherent desire. I would have you consider it well now that the time
+      approaches for a step which is irrevocable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words and his manner startled me alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Do you say that it might be better if I did not seek
+      ordination? What better can the world offer than the priesthood? Have you
+      not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master, becoming
+      in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation, of
+      self-sacrifice and purity,&rdquo; he answered slowly, &ldquo;that is the noblest thing
+      a man can be. But to be a bad priest&mdash;there are other ways of being
+      damned less hurtful to the Church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be a bad priest?&rdquo; quoth I. &ldquo;Is it possible to be a bad priest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.
+      Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.
+      Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolis of
+      the Living. Others, Agostino&mdash;and these are men most worthy of pity&mdash;enter
+      the Church because they are driven to it in youth by ill-advised parents.
+      I would not have you one of these, my son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at him, my amazement ever growing. &ldquo;Do you... do you think I am
+      in danger of it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a question you must answer for yourself. No man can know what is
+      in another's heart. I have trained you as I was bidden train you. I have
+      seen you devout, increasing in piety, and yet...&rdquo; He paused, and looked at
+      me again. &ldquo;It may be that this is no more than the fruit of your training;
+      it may be that your piety and devotion are purely intellectual. It is very
+      often so. Men know the precepts of religion as a lawyer knows the law. It
+      no more follows out of that that they are religious&mdash;though they
+      conceive that it does&mdash;than it follows that a lawyer is law-abiding.
+      It is in the acts of their lives that we must seek their real natures, and
+      no single act of your life, Agostino, has yet given sign that the call is
+      in your heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with the
+      world, you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that you did
+      not kill is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg. I do not
+      say that you did a very sinful thing. In a worldly youth of your years the
+      provocation you received would have more than justified your action. But
+      not in one who aims at a life of humility and self-forgetfulness such as
+      the priesthood imposes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I heard you tell my mother below stairs that I was
+      nearer sainthood than either of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled sadly, and shook his head. &ldquo;They were rash words, Agostino. I
+      mistook ignorance for purity&mdash;a common error. I have pondered it
+      since, and my reflection brings me to utter what in this household amounts
+      to treason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not understand,&rdquo; I confessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My duty to your mother I have discharged more faithfully perhaps than I
+      had the right to do. My duty to my God I am discharging now, although to
+      you I may rather appear as an advocatus diaboli. This duty is to warn you;
+      to bid you consider well the step you are to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, Agostino. I am speaking to you out of the bitter experience of a
+      very cruel life. I would not have you tread the path I have trodden. It
+      seldom leads to happiness in this world or the next; it seldom leads
+      anywhere but straight to Hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, and I looked into his haggard face in utter stupefaction to
+      hear such words from the lips of one whom I had ever looked upon as
+      goodness incarnate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had I not known that some day I must speak to you as I am speaking now, I
+      had long since abandoned a task which I did not consider good. But I
+      feared to leave you. I feared that if I were removed my place might be
+      taken by some time-server who to earn a livelihood would tutor you as your
+      mother would have you tutored, and thrust you forth without warning upon
+      the life to which you have been vowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once, years ago, I was on the point of resisting your mother.&rdquo; He passed
+      a hand wearily across his brow. &ldquo;It was on the night that Gino Falcone
+      left us, driven forth by her because she accounted it her duty. Do you
+      remember, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I remember!&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That night,&rdquo; he pursued, &ldquo;I was angered&mdash;righteously angered to see
+      so wicked and unchristian an act performed in blasphemous
+      self-righteousness. I was on the point of denouncing the deed as it
+      deserved, of denouncing your mother for it to her face. And then I
+      remembered you. I remembered the love I had borne your father, and my duty
+      to him, to see that no such wrong was done you in the end as that which I
+      feared. I reflected that if I spoke the words that were burning my tongue
+      for utterance, I should go as Gino Falcone had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that the going mattered. I could better save my soul elsewhere than
+      here in this atmosphere of Christianity misunderstood; and there are
+      always convents of my order to afford me shelter. But your being abandoned
+      mattered; and I felt that if I went, abandoned you would be to the
+      influences that drove and moulded you without consideration for your
+      nature and your inborn inclinations. Therefore I remained, and left
+      Falcone's cause unchampioned. Later I was to learn that he had found a
+      friend, and that he was... that he was being cared for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By whom?&rdquo; quoth I, more interested perhaps in this than in anything that
+      he had yet said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By one who was your father's friend,&rdquo; he said, after a moment's
+      hesitation, &ldquo;a soldier of fortune by name of Galeotto&mdash;a leader of
+      free lances who goes by the name of Il Gran Galeotto. But let that be. I
+      want to tell you of myself, that you may judge with what authority I
+      speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was destined,&rdquo; Agostino, for a soldier's life in the following of my
+      valiant foster-brother, your father. Had I preserved the strength of my
+      early youth, undoubtedly a soldier's harness would be strapped here to-day
+      in the place of this scapulary. But it happened that an illness left me
+      sickly and ailing, and unfitted me utterly for such a life. Similarly it
+      unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that I threatened to become a
+      useless burden upon my parents, who were peasant-folk. To avoid this they
+      determined to make a monk of me; they offered me to God because they found
+      me unfitted for the service of man; and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk,
+      they accounted that in doing so they did a good and pious thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things I
+      studied; I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to the
+      future; I submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, and
+      before I awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, I
+      was in orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sank his voice impressively as he concluded&mdash;&ldquo;For ten years
+      thereafter, Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle a
+      knotted length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung and
+      chafed me and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodily ease
+      or proper rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection my
+      rebellious flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to me
+      must have been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I not been
+      devout and strong in my devotion I could never have endured what I was
+      forced to endure as the alternative to damnation, because without
+      consideration for my nature I had been ordained a priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider this, Agostino; consider it well. I would not have you go that
+      way, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur.
+      Because I know&mdash;I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and
+      thanking God for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me&mdash;that
+      for one priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such
+      agonizing means, a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of
+      their example they drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the
+      hands of her enemies, which is a still heavier reckoning to meet
+      hereafter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A spell of silence followed. I was strangely moved by his tale, strangely
+      impressed by the warning that I perceived in it. And yet my confidence, I
+      think, was all unshaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedside to
+      ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed my
+      confidence in my answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;The life
+      that will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I would
+      follow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me long and sadly. &ldquo;You must do as your heart bids you,&rdquo; he
+      sighed. &ldquo;And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learnt to
+      speak to you more plainly.&rdquo; And upon that he left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day I set out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My leave-takings were brief. My mother shed some tears and many prayers
+      over me at parting. Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me. That
+      were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I should treasure as
+      a sacred thing. Her tears were tears of dread lest, surrounded by perils
+      in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify her vows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me.
+      Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilment of
+      her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered. To the price that
+      later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave a single
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio. My mother had suffered
+      me to do no more than kiss her hand&mdash;as was my custom. But the friar
+      took me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember!&rdquo; he murmured huskily and impressively. And then, putting me
+      from him, &ldquo;God help and guide you, my son,&rdquo; were his last words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went down the steps into the courtyard where most of the servants were
+      gathered to see their lord's departure, whilst Messer Arcolano, who was to
+      go with me, paused to assure my mother of the care that he would have of
+      me, and to receive her final commands concerning me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four men, mounted and armed, stood waiting to escort us, and with them
+      were three mules, one for Arcolano, one for myself, and the third already
+      laden with my baggage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A servant held my stirrup, and I swung myself up into the saddle, with
+      which I was but indifferently acquainted. Then Arcolano mounted too,
+      puffing over the effort, for he was a corpulent, rubicund man with the
+      fattest hands I have ever seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I touched my mule with the whip, and the beast began to move. Arcolano
+      ambled beside me; and behind us, abreast, came the men-at-arms. Thus we
+      rode down towards the gateway, and as we went the servants murmured their
+      valedictory words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A safe journey, Madonnino!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good return, Madonnino!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled back at them, and in the eyes of more than one I detected a look
+      of commiseration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once I turned, when the end of the quadrangle was reached, and I waved my
+      cap to my mother and Fra Gervasio, who stood upon the steps where I had
+      left them. The friar responded by waving back to me. But my mother made no
+      sign. Likely enough her eyes were upon the ground again already
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her unresponsiveness almost angered me. I felt that a man had the right to
+      some slight display of tenderness from the woman who had borne him. Her
+      frigidity wounded me. It wounded me the more in comparison with the
+      affectionate clasp of old Gervasio's arms. With a knot in my throat I
+      passed from the sunlight of the courtyard into the gloom of the gateway,
+      and out again beyond, upon the drawbridge. Our hooves thudded briskly upon
+      the timbers, and then with a sharper note upon the cobbles beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was outside the walls of the castle for the first time. Before me the
+      long, rudely paved street of the borgo sloped away to the market-place of
+      the town of Mondolfo. Beyond that lay the world, itself&mdash;all at my
+      feet, as I imagined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knot in my throat was dissolved. My pulses quickened with
+      anticipation. I dug my heels into the mule's belly and pushed on, the
+      portly cleric at my side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus I left my home and the gloomy, sorrowful influence of my most
+      dolorous mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK II. GIULIANA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Let me not follow in too close detail the incidents of that journey lest I
+      be in danger of becoming tedious. In themselves they contained laughable
+      matter enough, but in the mere relation they may seem dull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the borgo, ahead of us, ran the rumour that here was the Madonnino of
+      Mondolfo, and the excitement that the announcement caused was something at
+      which I did not know whether to be flattered or offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The houses gave up their inhabitants, and all stood at gaze as we passed,
+      to behold for the first time this lord of theirs of whom they had heard
+      Heaven knows what stories&mdash;for where there are elements of mystery
+      human invention can be very active.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon the
+      glossy neck of my mule. Very soon, however, growing accustomed to being
+      stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became a
+      trouble to Messer Arcolano. For as I looked about me there were a hundred
+      things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a
+      market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val di
+      Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time
+      that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before me,
+      making way invitingly. But Messer Arcolano urged me along, saying that we
+      had far to go, and that in Piacenza there were better shops and that I
+      should have more time to view them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my eye&mdash;Durfreno's
+      arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon&mdash;and I must draw rein and
+      cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work, plaguing Arcolano
+      with a score of questions concerning the identity of the main figure and
+      how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and whether he had succeeded
+      in the end in his attempt to strangle it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arcolano, out of patience by now, answered me shortly that the reptile was
+      the sculptor's pious symbolization of sin, which St. Hercules was
+      overcoming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am by no means sure that such was not indeed his own conception of the
+      matter, and that there did not exist in his mind some confusion as to
+      whether the pagan demigod had a place in the Calendar or not. For he was
+      an uncultured, plebeian fellow, and what my mother should have found in
+      him to induce her to prefer him for her confessor and spiritual counsellor
+      to the learned Fra Gervasio is one more of the many mysteries which an
+      attempt to understand her must ever present to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there were the young peasant girls who thronged about and stood in
+      groups, blushing furiously under my glance, which Arcolano vainly bade me
+      lower. A score of times did it seem to me that one of these brown-legged,
+      lithe, comely creatures was my little Luisina; and more than once I was on
+      the point of addressing one or another, to discover my mistake and be
+      admonished for my astounding frivolousness by Messer Arcolano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when once or twice I returned the friendly laughter of these girls,
+      whilst the grinning serving-men behind me would nudge one another and wink
+      to see me&mdash;as they thought&mdash;so very far off the road to
+      priesthood to which I was vowed, hot anathema poured from the fat cleric's
+      lips, and he urged me roughly to go faster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tortures ended at last when we came into the open country. We rode in
+      silence for a mile or two, I being full of thought of all that I had seen,
+      and infected a little by the fever of life through which I had just
+      passed. At last, I remember that I turned to Arcolano, who was riding with
+      the ears of his mule in line with my saddle-bow, and asked him to point
+      out to me where my dominions ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meek question provoked an astonishingly churlish answer. I was shortly
+      bidden to give my mind to other than worldly things; and with that he
+      began a homily, which lasted for many a weary mile, upon the vanities of
+      the world and the glories of Paradise&mdash;a homily of the very tritest,
+      upon subjects whereupon I, myself, could have dilated to better purpose
+      than could His Ignorance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distance from Mondolfo to Piacenza is a good eight leagues, and though
+      we had set out very early, it was past noon before we caught our first
+      glimpse of the city by the Po, lying low as it does in the vast Aemilian
+      plain, and Arcolano set himself to name to me this church and that whose
+      spires stood out against the cobalt background of the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour or so after our first glimpse of the city, our weary beasts
+      brought us up to the Gate of San Lazzaro. But we did not enter, as I had
+      hoped. Messer Arcolano had had enough of me and my questions at Mondolfo,
+      and he was not minded to expose himself to worse behaviour on my part in
+      the more interesting thoroughfares of this great city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we passed it by, and rode under the very walls by way of an avenue of
+      flowering chestnuts, round to the northern side, until we emerged suddenly
+      upon the sands of Po, and I had my first view at close quarters of that
+      mighty river flowing gently about the islands, all thick with willows,
+      that seemed to float upon its gleaming waters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fishermen were at work in a boat out in mid-stream, heaving their nets to
+      the sound of the oddest cantilena, and I was all for pausing there to
+      watch their operations. But Arcolano urged me onward with that impatience
+      of his which took no account of my very natural curiosity. Presently I
+      drew rein again with exclamations of delight and surprise to see the
+      wonderful bridge of boats that spanned the river a little higher up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we had reached our destination. Arcolano called a halt at the gates of
+      a villa that stood a little way back from the road on slightly rising
+      ground near the Fodesta Gate. He bade one of the grooms get down and open,
+      and presently we ambled up a short avenue between tall banks of laurel, to
+      the steps of the villa itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a house of fair proportions, though to me at the time, accustomed
+      to the vast spaces of Mondolfo, it seemed the merest hut. It was painted
+      white, and it had green Venetian shutters which gave it a cool and
+      pleasant air; and through one of the open windows floated a sound of merry
+      voices, in which a woman's laugh was predominant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The double doors stood open and through these there emerged a moment after
+      our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us swiftly,
+      whose thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano in the pause
+      he made before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of ill-fitting
+      shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Messer Astorre Fifanti, the pedant under whom I was to study, and
+      with whom I was to take up my residence for some months to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing in him one who was to be set in authority over me, I surveyed him
+      with the profoundest interest, and from that instant I disliked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was, as I have said, a tall, thin man; and he had long hands that were
+      very big and bony in the knuckles. Indeed they looked like monstrous
+      skeleton hands with a glove of skin stretched over them. He was quite
+      bald, save for a curly grizzled fringe that surrounded the back of his
+      head, on a level with his enormous ears, and his forehead ran up to the
+      summit of his egg-shaped head. His nose was pendulous and his eyes were
+      closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty. He wore no beard, and his
+      leathery cheeks were blue from the razor. His age may have been fifty; his
+      air was mean and sycophantic. Finally he was dressed in a black gaberdine
+      that descended to his knees, and he ended in a pair of the leanest shanks
+      and largest feet conceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To greet us he fawned and washed his bony hands in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have made a safe journey, then,&rdquo; he purred. &ldquo;Benedicamus Dominum!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deo gratias!&rdquo; rumbled the fat priest, as he heaved his rotundity from the
+      saddle with the assistance of one of the grooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands, and Fifanti turned to survey me for the second time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is my noble charge!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Salve! Be welcome to my house,
+      Messer Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I got to earth, accepted his proffered hand, and thanked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came
+      hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time
+      Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too, of
+      some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon which he
+      desired the priest's rare judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arcolano hesitated, and his gluttonous mouth quivered and twitched. But he
+      excused himself in the end. He must on. He had business to discharge in
+      the town, and he must return at once and render an account of our safe
+      journey to the Countess at Mondolfo. If he tarried now it would grow late
+      ere he reached Mondolfo, and late travelling pleased him not at all. As it
+      was his bones would be weary and his flesh tender from so much riding; but
+      he would offer it up to Heaven for his sins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the too-amiable Fifanti had protested how little there could be
+      the need in the case of one so saintly as Messer Arcolano, the priest made
+      his farewells. He gave me his blessing and enjoined upon me obedience to
+      one who stood to me in loco parentis, heaved himself back on to his mule,
+      and departed with the grooms at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Doctor Fifanti set a bony hand upon my shoulder, and opined that
+      after my journey I must be in need of refreshment; and with that he led me
+      within doors, assuring me that in his house the needs of the body were as
+      closely cared for as the needs of the mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For an empty belly,&rdquo; he ended with his odious, sycophantic geniality,
+      &ldquo;makes an empty heart and an empty head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed through a hall that was prettily paved in mosaics, into a
+      chamber of good proportions, which seemed gay to me after the gloom by
+      which I had been surrounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ceiling was painted blue and flecked with golden stars, whilst the
+      walls were hung with deep blue tapestries on which was figured in grey and
+      brownish red a scene which, I was subsequently to learn, represented the
+      metamorphosis of Actaeon. At the moment I did not look too closely. The
+      figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused me
+      quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A good-sized table stood in the middle of the floor, bearing, upon a broad
+      strip of embroidered white napery, sparkling crystal and silver, vessels
+      of wine and platters of early fruits. About it sat a very noble company of
+      some half-dozen men and two very resplendent women. One of these was
+      slight and little, very dark and vivacious with eyes full of a malicious
+      humour. The other, of very noble proportions, of a fine, willowy height,
+      with coiled ropes of hair of a colour such as I had never dreamed could be
+      found upon human being. It was ruddy and glowed like metal. Her face and
+      neck&mdash;and of the latter there was a very considerable display&mdash;were
+      of the warm pale tint of old ivory. She had large, low-lidded eyes, which
+      lent her face a languid air. Her brow was low and broad, and her lips of a
+      most startling red against the pallor of the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow
+      smile, holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous
+      welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This, Ser Agostino,&rdquo; said Fifanti, &ldquo;is my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he announced her to be his daughter it would have been more credible
+      on the score of their respective years, though equally incredible on the
+      score of their respective personalities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gaped foolishly in my amazement, a little dazzled, too, by the
+      effulgence of her eyes, which were now raised to the level of my own. I
+      lowered my glance abashed, and answered her as courteously as I could.
+      Then she led me to the table, and presented me to the company, naming each
+      to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first was a slim and very dainty young gentleman in a scarlet
+      walking-suit, over which he wore a long scarlet mantle. A gold cross was
+      suspended from his neck by a massive chain of gold. He was delicately
+      featured, with a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair
+      hair that fell in waves about his effeminate face. He had the whitest of
+      hands, very delicately veined in blue, and it was&mdash;as I soon observed&mdash;his
+      habit to carry them raised, so that the blood might not flow into them to
+      coarsen their beauty. Attached to his left wrist by a fine chain was a
+      gold pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very beautifully
+      chiselled. Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous sapphire ring of
+      his rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from
+      being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence&mdash;never
+      dreaming that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would
+      entertain a guest so exalted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of
+      Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed
+      personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had
+      pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of the
+      man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing his
+      ring. I knelt to kiss it, overawed by his ecclesiastical rank, however
+      little awed by the man within it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I rose again he looked up at me considering my inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;here is a fine soldier lost to glory.&rdquo; And as he spoke,
+      he half turned to a young man who sat beside him, a man at whom I was
+      eager to take a fuller look, for his face was most strangely familiar to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was tall and graceful, very beautifully dressed in purple and gold, and
+      his blue-black hair was held in a net or coif of finest gold thread. His
+      garments clung as tightly and smoothly as if he had been kneaded into them&mdash;as,
+      indeed, he had. But it was his face that held my eyes. It was a
+      sun-tanned, shaven hawk-face with black level brows, black eyes, and a
+      strong jaw, handsome save for something displeasing in the lines of the
+      mouth, something sardonic, proud, and contemptuous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cardinal addressed him. &ldquo;You breed fine fellows in your family,
+      Cosimo,&rdquo; were the words with which he startled me, and then I knew where I
+      had seen that face before. In my mirror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was as like me&mdash;save that he was blacker and not so tall&mdash;as
+      if he had been own brother to me instead of merely cousin as I knew at
+      once he was. For he must be that guelphic Anguissola renegade who served
+      the Pope and was high in favour with Farnese, and Captain of Justice in
+      Piacenza. In age he may have been some seven or eight years older than
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at him now with interest, and I found attractions in him, the
+      chief of which was his likeness to my father. So must my father have
+      looked when he was this fellow's age. He returned my glance with a smile
+      that did not improve his countenance, so contemptuously languid was it, so
+      very supercilious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may stare, cousin,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for I think I do you the honour to be
+      something like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find him,&rdquo; lisped the Cardinal to me, &ldquo;the most self-complacent
+      dog in Italy. When he sees in you a likeness to himself he flatters
+      himself grossly, which, as you know him better, you will discover to be
+      his inveterate habit. He is his own most assiduous courtier.&rdquo; And my Lord
+      Gambara sank back into his chair, languishing, the pomander to his
+      nostrils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All laughed, and Messer Cosimo with them, still considering me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Messer Fifanti's wife had yet to make me known to three others who sat
+      there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady. This last was a cousin of her own&mdash;Donna
+      Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for the first and last time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three remaining men of the company are of little interest save one,
+      whose name was to be well known&mdash;nay, was well known already, though
+      not to one who had lived in such seclusion as mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was that fine poet Annibale Caro, whom I have heard judged to be all
+      but the equal of the great Petrarca himself. A man who had less the air of
+      a poet it would not be easy to conceive. He was of middle height and of a
+      habit of body inclining to portliness, and his age may have been forty.
+      His face was bearded, ruddy, and small-featured, and there was about him
+      an air of smug prosperity; he was dressed with care, but he had none of
+      the splendour of the Cardinal or my cousin. Let me add that he was
+      secretary to the Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and that he was here in Piacenza
+      on a mission to the Governor in which his master's interests were
+      concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other two who completed that company are of no account, and indeed
+      their names escape me, though I seem to remember that one was named Pacini
+      and that he was said to be a philosopher of considerable parts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bidden to table by Messer Fifanti, I took the chair he offered me beside
+      his lady, and presently came the old servant whom already I had seen,
+      bearing meat for me. I was hungry, and I fell to with zest, what time a
+      pleasant ripple of talk ran round the board. Facing me sat my cousin, and
+      I never observed until my hunger was become less clamorous with what an
+      insistence he regarded me. At last, however, our eyes met across the
+      board. He smiled that crooked, somewhat unpleasant smile of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, Ser Agostino, they are to make a priest of you?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God pleasing,&rdquo; I answered soberly, and perhaps shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if his brains at all resemble his body,&rdquo; lisped the Cardinal-legate,
+      &ldquo;you may live to see an Anguissola Pope, my Cosimo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My stare must have betrayed my amazement at such words. &ldquo;Not so,
+      magnificent,&rdquo; I made answer. &ldquo;I am destined for the life monastic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monastic!&rdquo; quoth he, in a sort of horror, and looking as if a bad smell
+      had suddenly been thrust under his nose. He shrugged and pouted and had
+      fresh recourse to his pomander. &ldquo;O, well! Friars have become popes before
+      to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to enter the hermit order of St. Augustine,&rdquo; I again corrected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Caro, in his big, full voice. &ldquo;He aspires not to Rome but to
+      Heaven, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what the devil does he in your house, Fifanti?&rdquo; quoth the Cardinal.
+      &ldquo;Are you to teach him sanctity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the table shook with laughter at a jest I did not understand any more
+      than I understood my Lord Cardinal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Messer Fifanti, sitting at the table-head, shot me a glance of anxious
+      inquiry; he smiled foolishly, and washed his hands in the air again, his
+      mind fumbling for an answer that should turn aside that barbed jest. But
+      he was forestalled by my cousin Cosimo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The teaching might come more aptly from Monna Giuliana,&rdquo; said he, and
+      smiled very boldly across at Fifanti's lady who sat beside me, whilst a
+      frown grew upon the prodigious brow of the pedant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, indeed,&rdquo; the Cardinal murmured, considering her through
+      half-closed eyes, &ldquo;there is no man but may enter Paradise at her bidding.&rdquo;
+       And he sighed furiously, whilst she chid him for his boldness; and for all
+      that much of what they said was in a language that might have been unknown
+      to me, yet was I lost in amazement to see a prelate made so free with. She
+      turned to me, and the glory of her eyes fell about my soul like an
+      effulgence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not heed them, Ser Agostino. They are profane and wicked men,&rdquo; she
+      said, &ldquo;and if you aspire to holiness, the less you see of them the better
+      will it be for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not doubt it, yet I dared not make so bold as to confess it, and I
+      wondered why they should laugh to hear her earnest censure of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a thorny path, this path of holiness,&rdquo; said the Cardinal sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your excellency has been told so, we assume,&rdquo; quoth Caro, who had a very
+      bitter tongue for one who looked so well-nourished and contented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might have found it so for myself but that my lot has been cast among
+      sinners,&rdquo; answered the Cardinal, comprehending the company in his glance
+      and gesture. &ldquo;As it is, I do what I can to mend their lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now here is gallantry of a different sort!&rdquo; cried the little Leocadia
+      with a giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, as to that,&rdquo; quoth Cosimo, showing his fine teeth in a smile, &ldquo;there
+      is a proverb as to the gallantry of priests. It is like the love of women,
+      which again is like water in a basket&mdash;as soon in as out.&rdquo; And his
+      eyes hung upon Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are the basket, sir captain, shall anyone blame the women?&rdquo; she
+      countered with her lazy insolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Body of God!&rdquo; cried the Cardinal, and laughed wholeheartedly, whilst my
+      cousin scowled. &ldquo;There you have the truth, Cosimo, and the truth is better
+      than proverbs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is unlucky to speak of the dead at table,&rdquo; put in Caro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who spoke of the dead, Messer Annibale?&rdquo; quoth Leocadia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not my Lord Cardinal mention Truth?&rdquo; answered the brutal poet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a derider&mdash;a gross sinner,&rdquo; said the Cardinal languidly.
+      &ldquo;Stick to your verses, man, and leave Truth alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agreed&mdash;if your excellency will stick to Truth and quit writing
+      verses. I offer the compact in the interest of humanity, which will be the
+      gainer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company shook with laughter at this direct and offensive hit. But my
+      Lord Gambara seemed nowise incensed. Indeed, I was beginning to conclude
+      that the man had a sweetness and tolerance of nature that bordered on the
+      saintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sipped his wine thoughtfully, and held it up to the light so that the
+      deep ruby of it sparkled in the Venetian crystal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You remind me that I have written a new song,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then have I sinned indeed,&rdquo; groaned Caro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Gambara, disregarding the interruption, his glass still raised, his
+      mild eyes upon the wine, began to recite:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Bacchus saepe visitans
+      Mulierum genus
+      Facit eas subditas
+      Tibi, O tu Venus!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Without completely understanding it, yet scandalized beyond measure at as
+      much as I understood, to hear such sentiments upon his priestly lips, I
+      stared at him in candid horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he got no farther. Caro smote the table with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When wrote you that, my lord?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo; quoth the Cardinal, frowning at the interruption. &ldquo;Why,
+      yestereve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; It was something between a bark and a laugh from Messer Caro. &ldquo;In
+      that case, my lord, memory usurped the place of invention. That song was
+      sung at Pavia when I was a student&mdash;which is more years ago than I
+      care to think of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cardinal smiled upon him, unabashed. &ldquo;And what then, pray? Can we
+      avoid these things? Why, the very Virgil whom you plagiarize so freely was
+      himself a plagiarist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this, as you may well conceive, provoked a discussion about the board,
+      in which all joined, not excepting Fifanti's lady and Donna Leocadia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I listened in some amazement and deep interest to matters that were
+      entirely strange to me, to the arguing of mysteries which seemed to me&mdash;even
+      from what I heard of them&mdash;to be strangely attractive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anon Fifanti joined in the discussion, and I observed how as soon as he
+      began to speak they all fell silent, all listened to him as to a master,
+      what time he delivered himself of his opinions and criticisms of this
+      Virgil, with a force, a lucidity and an eloquence that revealed his
+      learning even to one so ignorant as myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was listened to with deference by all, if we except perhaps my Lord
+      Gambara, who had no respect for anything and who preferred to whisper to
+      Leocadia under cover of his hand, ogling her what time she simpered. Once
+      or twice Monna Giuliana flashed him an unfriendly glance, and this I
+      accounted natural, deeming that she resented this lack of attention to the
+      erudite dissertation of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as for the others, they were attentive, as I have said, and even
+      Messer Caro, who at the time&mdash;as I gathered then&mdash;was engaged
+      upon a translation of Virgil into Tuscan, and who, therefore, might be
+      accounted something of an authority, held his peace and listened what time
+      the doctor reasoned and discoursed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti's mean, sycophantic air fell away from him as by magic. Warmed by
+      his subject and his enthusiasm he seemed suddenly ennobled, and I found
+      him less antipathic; indeed, I began to see something admirable in the
+      man, some of that divine quality that only deep culture and learning can
+      impart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I conceived that now, at last, I held the explanation of how it came to
+      pass that so distinguished a company frequented his house and gathered on
+      such familiar terms about his board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I began to be less amazed at the circumstance that he should possess
+      for wife so beautiful and superb a creature as Madonna Giuliana. I thought
+      that I obtained glimpses of the charm which that elderly man might be able
+      to exert upon a fine and cultured young nature with aspirations for things
+      above the commonplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. HUMANITIES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As the days passed and swelled into weeks, and these, in their turn,
+      accumulated into months, I grew rapidly learned in worldly matters at
+      Doctor Fifanti's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curriculum I now pursued was so vastly different from that which my
+      mother had bidden Fra Gervasio to set me, and my acquaintance with the
+      profane writers advanced so swiftly once it was engaged upon, that I
+      acquired knowledge as a weed grows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti flung into strange passions when he discovered the extent of my
+      ignorance and the amazing circumstance that whilst Fra Gervasio had made
+      of me a fluent Latin scholar, he had kept me in utter ignorance of the
+      classic writers, and almost in as great an ignorance of history itself.
+      This the pedant set himself at once to redress, and amongst the earliest
+      works he gave me as preparation were Latin translations of Thucydides and
+      Herodotus which I devoured&mdash;especially the glowing pages of the
+      latter&mdash;at a speed that alarmed my tutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But mere studiousness was not my spur, as he imagined. I was enthralled by
+      the novelty of the matters that I read, so different from all those with
+      which I had been allowed to become acquainted hitherto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed Tacitus, and after him Cicero and Livy, which latter two I
+      found less arresting; then came Lucretius, and his De Rerum Naturae proved
+      a succulent dish to my inquisitive appetite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the cream and glory of the ancient writers I had yet to taste. My
+      first acquaintance with the poets came from the translation of Virgil upon
+      which Messer Caro was at the time engaged. He had definitely taken up his
+      residence in Piacenza, whither it was said that Farnese, his master, who
+      was to be made our Duke, would shortly come. And in the interval of
+      labouring for Farnese, as Caro was doing, he would toil at his
+      translation, and from time to time he would bring sheaves of his
+      manuscript to the doctor's house, to read what he had accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came, I remember, one languid afternoon in August, when I had been with
+      Messer Fifanti for close upon three months, during which time my mind had
+      gradually, yet swiftly, been opening out like a bud under the sunlight of
+      much new learning. We sat in the fine garden behind the house, on the
+      lawn, in the shade of mulberry trees laden with yellow translucent fruit,
+      by a pond that was all afloat with water-lilies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a crescent-shaped seat of hewn marble, over which Messer
+      Gambara, who was with us, had thrown his scarlet cardinal's cloak, the day
+      being oppressively hot. He was as usual in plain, walking clothes, and
+      save for the ring on his finger and the cross on his breast, you had never
+      conceived him an ecclesiastic. He sat near his cloak, upon the marble
+      seat, and beside him sat Monna Giuliana, who was all in white save for the
+      gold girdle at her waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Caro, himself, stood to read, his bulky manuscript in his hands. Against
+      the sundial, facing the poet, leaned the tall figure of Messer Fifanti,
+      his bald head uncovered and shining humidly, his eyes ever and anon
+      stealing a look at his splendid wife where she sat so demurely at the
+      prelate's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Myself, I lay on the grass near the pond, my hand trailing in the cool
+      water, and at first I was not greatly interested. The heat of the day and
+      the circumstance that we had dined, when played upon by the poet's booming
+      and somewhat monotonous voice, had a lulling effect from which I was in
+      danger of falling asleep. But anon, as the narrative warmed and quickened,
+      the danger was well overpast. I was very wide-awake, my pulses throbbing,
+      my imagination all on fire. I sat up and listened with an enthralled
+      attention, unconscious of everything and everybody, unconscious even of
+      the very voice of the reader, intent only upon the amazing, tragic matter
+      that he read.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For it happened that this was the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, and the most
+      lamentable, heartrending story of Dido's love for Aeneas, of his desertion
+      of her, of her grief and death upon the funeral pyre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It held me spellbound. It was more real then anything that I had ever read
+      or heard; and the fate of Dido moved me as if I had known and loved her;
+      so that long ere Messer Caro came to an end I was weeping freely in a most
+      exquisite misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter I was as one who has tasted strong wine and finds his thirst
+      fired by it. Within a week I had read the Aeneid through, and was reading
+      it a second time. Then came the Comedies of Terence, the Metamorphoses of
+      Ovid, Martial, and the Satires of Juvenal. And with those my
+      transformation was complete. No longer could I find satisfaction in the
+      writings of the fathers of the church, or in contemplating the lives of
+      the saints, after the pageantries which the eyes of my soul had looked
+      upon in the profane authors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What instructions my mother supposed Fifanti to have received concerning
+      me from Arcolano, I cannot think. But certain it is that she could never
+      have dreamed under what influences I was so soon to come, no more than she
+      could conceive what havoc they played with all that hitherto I had learnt
+      and with the resolutions that I had formed&mdash;and that she had formed
+      for me&mdash;concerning the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this reading perturbed me very oddly, as one is perturbed who having
+      long dwelt in darkness is suddenly brought into the sunlight and dazzled
+      by it, so that, grown conscious of his sight, he is more effectively
+      blinded than he was before. For the process that should have been a
+      gradual one from tender years was carried through in what amounted to
+      little more than a few weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Gambara took an odd interest in me. He was something of a
+      philosopher in his trivial way; something of a student of his fellow-man;
+      and he looked upon me as an odd human growth that was being subjected to
+      an unusual experiment. I think he took a certain delight in helping that
+      experiment forward; and certain it is that he had more to do with the
+      debauching of my mind than any other, or than any reading that I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not that he told me more than elsewhere I could have learnt; it was
+      the cynical manner in which he conveyed his information. He had a way of
+      telling me of monstrous things as if they were purely normal and natural
+      to a properly focussed eye, and as if any monstrousness they might present
+      to me were due to some distortion imparted to them solely by the
+      imperfection of my intellectual vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning
+      Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on
+      whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy
+      of Parma and Piacenza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day as we walked together in the garden&mdash;my Lord Gambara and I&mdash;I
+      asked him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His claim?&rdquo; quoth he, checking, to give me a long, cool stare. He laughed
+      shortly and resumed his pacing, I keeping step with him. &ldquo;Why, is he not
+      the Pope's son, and is not that claim enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Pope's son!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;But how is it possible that the Holy
+      Father should have a son?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it possible?&rdquo; he echoed mockingly. &ldquo;Why, I will tell you, sir.
+      When our present Holy Father went as Cardinal-legate to the Mark of
+      Ancona, he met there a certain lady whose name was Lola, who pleased him,
+      and who was pleased with him. Alessandro Farnese was a handsome man, Ser
+      Agostino. She bore him three children, of whom one is dead, another is
+      Madonna Costanza, who is wed to Sforza of Santafiora, and the third&mdash;who
+      really happens to have been the first-born&mdash;is Messer Pier Luigi,
+      present Duke of Castro and future Duke of Piacenza.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was some time ere I could speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But his vows, then?&rdquo; I exclaimed at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! His vows!&rdquo; said the Cardinal-legate. &ldquo;True, there were his vows. I
+      had forgotten that. No doubt he did the same.&rdquo; And he smiled sardonically,
+      sniffing at his pomander-ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that beginning in a fresh branch of knowledge much followed quickly.
+      Under my questionings, Messer Gambara very readily made me acquainted
+      through his unsparing eyes with that cesspool that was known as the Roman
+      Curia. And my horror, my disillusionment increased at every word he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I learnt from him that Pope Paul III was no exception to the rule, no such
+      scandal as I had imagined; that his own elevation to the purple was due in
+      origin to the favour which his sister, the beautiful Giulia, had found in
+      the eyes of the Borgia Pope, some fifty years ago. Through him I came to
+      know the Sacred College as it really was; not the very home and fount of
+      Christianity, as I had deemed it, controlled and guided by men of a
+      sublime saintliness of ways, but a gathering of ambitious worldlings, who
+      had become so brazen in their greed of temporal power that they did not
+      even trouble to cloak the sin and evil in which they lived; men in whom
+      the spirit that had actuated those saints the study of whose lives had
+      been my early delight, lived no more than it might live in the bosom of a
+      harlot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said so to him one day in a wild, furious access of boldness, in one of
+      those passionate outbursts that are begotten of illusions blighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard me through quite calmly, without the least trace of anger,
+      smiling ever his quiet mocking smile, and plucking at his little, auburn
+      beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wrong, I think,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Say that the Church has fallen a prey
+      to self-seekers who have entered it under the cloak of the priesthood.
+      What then? In their hands the Church has been enriched. She has gained
+      power, which she must retain. And that is to the Church's good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what of the scandal of it?&rdquo; I stormed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, as to that&mdash;why, boy, have you never read Boccaccio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read him, then,&rdquo; he urged me. &ldquo;He will teach you much that you need to
+      know. And read in particular the story of Abraam, the Jew, who upon
+      visiting Rome was so scandalized by the licence and luxury of the clergy
+      that he straightway had himself baptized and became a Christian,
+      accounting that a religion that could survive such wiles of Satan to
+      destroy it must indeed be the true religion, divinely inspired.&rdquo; He
+      laughed his little cynical laugh to see my confusion increased by that
+      bitter paradox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is little wonder that I was all bewildered, that I was like some poor
+      mariner upon unknown waters, without stars or compass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus that summer ebbed slowly, and the time of my projected minor
+      ordination approached. Messer Gambara's visits to Fifanti's grew more and
+      more frequent, until they became a daily occurrence; and now my cousin
+      Cosimo came oftener too. But it was their custom to come in the forenoon,
+      when I was at work with Fifanti. And often I observed the doctor to be
+      oddly preoccupied, and to spend much time in creeping to the window that
+      was all wreathed in clematis, and in peeping through that purple-decked
+      green curtain into the garden where his excellency and Cosimo walked with
+      Monna Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When both visitors were there his anxiety seemed less. But if only one
+      were present he would give himself no peace. And once when Messer Gambara
+      and she went together within doors, he abruptly interrupted my studies,
+      saying that it was enough for that day; and he went below to join them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half a year earlier I should have had no solution for his strange
+      behaviour. But I had learnt enough of the world by now to perceive what
+      maggot was stirring in that egg-shaped head. Yet I blushed for him, and
+      for his foul and unworthy suspicions. As soon would I have suspected the
+      painted Madonna from the brush of Raffaele Santi that I had seen over the
+      high altar of the Church of San Sisto, as suspect the beautiful and
+      noble-souled Giuliana of giving that old pedant cause for his uneasiness.
+      Still, I conceived that this was the penalty that such a withered growth
+      of humanity must pay for having presumed to marry a young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were much together in those days, Monna Giuliana and I. Our intimacy
+      had grown over a little incident that it were well I should mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young painter, Gianantonio Regillo, better known to the world as Il
+      Pordenone, had come to Piacenza that summer to decorate the Church of
+      Santa Maria della Campagna. He came furnished with letters to the
+      Governor, and Gambara had brought him to Fifanti's villa. From Monna
+      Giuliana the young painter heard the curious story of my having been vowed
+      prenatally to the cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine, and the
+      hope that was entertained that I should walk in the ways of St. Augustine
+      after whom I had been christened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a
+      fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having
+      seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion of
+      using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and daily
+      for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the time
+      Monna Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there&mdash;O
+      bitter irony!&mdash;you may see me to this day, as the saint in whose ways
+      it was desired that I should follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monna Giuliana and I would linger together in talk after the painter had
+      gone; and this would be at about the time that I had my first lessons of
+      Curial life from my Lord Gambara. You will remember that he mentioned
+      Boccaccio to me, and I chanced to ask her was there in the library a copy
+      of that author's tales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has that wicked priest bidden you to read them?&rdquo; she inquired, 'twixt
+      seriousness and mockery, her dark eyes upon me in one of those glances
+      that never left me easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her what had passed; and with a sigh and a comment that I would get
+      an indigestion from so much mental nourishment as I was consuming, she led
+      me to the little library to find the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Messer Fifanti's was a very choice collection of works, and every one in
+      manuscript; for the doctor was something of an idealist, and greatly
+      averse to the printing-press and the wide dissemination of books to which
+      it led. Out of his opposition to the machine grew a dislike to its
+      productions, which he denounced as vulgar; and not even their comparative
+      cheapness and the fact that, when all was said, he was a man of limited
+      means, would induce him to harbour a single volume that was so produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the shelves she sought, and finally drew down four heavy tomes.
+      Turning the pages of the first, she found there, with a readiness that
+      argued a good acquaintance with the work, the story of Abraam the Jew,
+      which I desired to read as it had been set down. She bade me read it
+      aloud, which I did, she seated in the window, listening to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first I read with some constraint and shyness, but presently warming to
+      my task and growing interested, I became animated and vivacious in my
+      manner, so that when I ceased I saw her sitting there, her hands clasped
+      about one knee, her eyes upon my face, her lips parted a little, the very
+      picture of interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that it happened that we established a custom, and very often,
+      almost daily, after dinner, we would repair together to the library, and I&mdash;who
+      hitherto had no acquaintance with any save Latin works&mdash;began to make
+      and soon to widen my knowledge of our Tuscan writers. We varied our
+      reading. We dipped into our poets. Dante we read, and Petrarca, and both
+      we loved, though better than the works of either&mdash;and this for the
+      sake of the swift movement and action that is in his narrative, though his
+      melodies, I realized, were not so pure&mdash;the Orlando of Ariosto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes we would be joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed very
+      long. He had an old-fashioned contempt for writings in what he called the
+      &ldquo;dialettale,&rdquo; and he loved the solemn injuvenations of the Latin tongue.
+      Soon, as he listened, he would begin to yawn, and presently grunt and rise
+      and depart, flinging a contemptuous word at the matter of my reading, and
+      telling me at times that I might find more profitable amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I persisted in it, guided ever by Fifanti's lady. And whatever we read
+      by way of divergence, ever and anon we would come back to the stilted,
+      lucid, vivid pages of Boccaccio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day I chanced upon the tragical story of &ldquo;Isabetta and the Pot of
+      Basil,&rdquo; and whilst I read I was conscious that she had moved from where
+      she had been sitting and had come to stand behind my chair. And when I
+      reached the point at which the heart-broken Isabetta takes the head of her
+      murdered lover to her room, a tear fell suddenly upon my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stopped, and looked up at Giuliana. She smiled at me through unshed
+      tears that magnified her matchless eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will read no more,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It is too sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, no!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Read on, Agostino! I love its sadness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So I read on to the story's cruel end, and when it was done I sat quite
+      still, myself a little moved by the tragedy of it, whilst Giuliana
+      continued to lean against my chair. I was moved, too, in another way;
+      curiously and unaccountably; and I could scarcely have defined what it was
+      that moved me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sought to break the spell of it, and turned the pages. &ldquo;Let me read
+      something else,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Something more gay, to dispel the sadness of
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But her hand fell suddenly upon mine, enclasping and holding it. &ldquo;Ah, no!&rdquo;
+       she begged me gently. &ldquo;Give me the book. Let us read no more to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was trembling under her touch&mdash;trembling, my every nerve a-quiver
+      and my breath shortened&mdash;and suddenly there flashed through my mind a
+      line of Dante's in the story of Paolo and Francesca:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Quel giorno piu non vi leggemo avanti.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Giuliana's words: &ldquo;Let us read no more to-day&rdquo;&mdash;had seemed an echo of
+      that line, and the echo made me of a sudden conscious of an unsuspected
+      parallel. All at once our position seemed to me strangely similar to that
+      of the ill-starred lovers of Rimini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the next moment I was sane again. She had withdrawn her hand, and had
+      taken the volume to restore it to its shelf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, no! At Rimini there had been two fools. Here there was but one. Let me
+      make an end of him by persuading him of his folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Giuliana did nothing to assist me in that task. She returned from the
+      book-shelf, and in passing lightly swept her fingers over my hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Agostino; let us walk in the garden,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went, my mood now overpast. I was as sober and self-contained as was my
+      habit. And soon thereafter came my Lord Gambara&mdash;a rare thing to
+      happen in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Awhile the three of us were together in the garden, talking of trivial
+      matters. Then she fell to wrangling with him concerning something that
+      Caro had written and of which she had the manuscript. In the end she
+      begged me would I go seek the writing in her chamber. I went, and hunted
+      where she had bidden me and elsewhere, and spent a good ten minutes vainly
+      in the task. Chagrined that I could not discover the thing, I went into
+      the library, thinking that it might be there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Fifanti was writing busily at the table when I intruded. He looked
+      up, thrusting his horn-rimmed spectacles high upon his peaked forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil!&rdquo; quoth he very testily. &ldquo;I thought you were in the garden
+      with Madonna Giuliana.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Gambara is there,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand. &ldquo;Do I not know
+      that?&rdquo; he roared, though I could see no reason for all this heat. &ldquo;And why
+      are you not with them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      You are not to suppose that I was still the meek, sheepish lad who had
+      come to Piacenza three months ago. I had not been learning my world and
+      discovering Man to no purpose all this while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has yet to be explained to me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;under what obligation I am to
+      be anywhere but where I please. That firstly. Secondly&mdash;but of
+      infinitely lesser moment&mdash;Monna Giuliana has sent me for the
+      manuscript of Messer Caro's Gigli d'Oro.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him. But quiet
+      he became.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I was vexed by your interruption,&rdquo; he said lamely, to explain his
+      late choler. &ldquo;Here is the thing. I found it here when I came. Messer Caro
+      might discover better employment for his leisure. But there, there&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      seemed in sudden haste again. &ldquo;Take it to her in God's name. She will be
+      impatient.&rdquo; I thought he sneered. &ldquo;O, she will praise your diligence,&rdquo; he
+      added, and this time I was sure that he sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it, thanked him, and left the room intrigued. And when I rejoined
+      them, and handed her the manuscript, the odd thing was that the subject of
+      their discourse having meanwhile shifted, it no longer interested her, and
+      she never once opened the pages she had been in such haste to have me
+      procure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was not done with riddles. For presently out came Fifanti himself,
+      looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual. He was
+      arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby slippers
+      on his long, lean feet. He was ever a man of most indifferent personal
+      habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Astorre,&rdquo; his wife greeted him. &ldquo;My Lord Cardinal brings you good
+      tidings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he so?&rdquo; quoth Fifanti, sourly as I thought; and he looked at the
+      legate as though his excellency were the very reverse of a happy
+      harbinger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will rejoice, I think, doctor,&rdquo; said the smiling prelate, &ldquo;to hear
+      that I have letters from my Lord Pier Luigi appointing you one of the
+      ducal secretaries. And this, I doubt not, will be followed, on his coming
+      hither, by an appointment to his council. Meanwhile, the stipend is three
+      hundred ducats, and the work is light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed a long and baffling silence, during which the doctor grew
+      first red, then pale, then red again, and Messer Gambara stood with his
+      scarlet cloak sweeping about his shapely limbs, sniffing his pomander and
+      smiling almost insolently into the other's face; and some of the insolence
+      of his look, I thought, was reflected upon the pale, placid countenance of
+      Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too much for my poor deserts,&rdquo; he said curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too humble,&rdquo; said the prelate. &ldquo;Your loyalty to the House of
+      Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hospitality!&rdquo; barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so oddly
+      that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks. &ldquo;You would pay for
+      that?&rdquo; he questioned, half mockingly. &ldquo;Oh, but for that a stipend of three
+      hundred ducats is too little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as if
+      she had been struck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Cardinal laughed outright. &ldquo;Come now, you use me with an amiable
+      frankness,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The stipend shall be doubled when you join the
+      council.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubled?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Six hundred...?&rdquo; He checked. The sum was vast. I saw
+      greed creep into his little eyes. What had troubled him hitherto, I could
+      not fathom even yet. He washed his bony hands in the air, and looked at
+      his wife again. &ldquo;It... it is a fair price, no doubt, my lord,&rdquo; said he,
+      his tone contemptuous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke shall be informed of the value of your learning,&rdquo; lisped the
+      Cardinal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti knit his brows. &ldquo;The value of my learning?&rdquo; he echoed, as if
+      slowly puzzled. &ldquo;My learning? Oh! Is that in question?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why else should we give you the appointment?&rdquo; smiled the Cardinal, with a
+      smile that was full of significance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what the town will be asking, no doubt,&rdquo; said Messer Fifanti. &ldquo;I
+      hope you will be able to satisfy its curiosity, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling, as
+      I could perceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of Monna
+      Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be hateful
+      to me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already profound
+      mystification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. PREUX-CHEVALIER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than
+      ever. Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not a day
+      passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his guidance,
+      I was wrestling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times he
+      was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of the
+      serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self. He watched her
+      curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she presented
+      a calm front and a patience almost saintly. He was as a man with some
+      mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it or cast it
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a
+      creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider what a
+      power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to my
+      erstwhile terror. She confided in me a little in those days, but ever with
+      a most saintly resignation. She had been sold into wedlock, she admitted,
+      with a man who might have been her father, and she confessed to finding
+      her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who intends none
+      the less to bear her cross with fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing. We had been reading
+      together, she and I, as was become our custom. She had fetched me a volume
+      of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side on the
+      marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder touching
+      mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare
+      justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was
+      confined in a golden net that was set with gems&mdash;a gift from my Lord
+      Gambara. Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday between
+      Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be the fruit
+      of a base and unworthy mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read, curiously enthralled&mdash;though whether by the beauty of the
+      lines or the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have
+      told you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she checked me. &ldquo;Leave now Panormitano,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Here is
+      something else upon which you shall give me your judgment.&rdquo; And she set
+      before me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand,
+      which was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a heart
+      that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner seemed,
+      the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admission of its
+      moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done that day in
+      the library when we had read of &ldquo;Isabetta and the Pot of Basil.&rdquo; Her hand
+      was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, thanks, Agostino,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Your praise is sweet to me. The
+      verses are my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. The
+      beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my
+      first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I should
+      have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the voice
+      of Messer Fifanti. &ldquo;What do you read?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We started apart, and turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we should
+      not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our ears had
+      been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidy gown of
+      black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face. Slowly he
+      put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony claw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his eyes
+      up until they all but disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and
+      Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily in
+      its russet sheath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?&rdquo;
+       quoth he. &ldquo;Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you must be
+      wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor illiterate
+      gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?&rdquo; He took the book.
+      &ldquo;Panormitano!&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Now, there's a fitting author for a saint in
+      embryo! There's a fine preparation for the cloister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Giuliana. He put forward his hand and touched her bare
+      shoulder with his hideous forefinger. She cringed under the touch as if it
+      were barbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress,&rdquo;
+       he said, with his deadly smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; she replied indignantly. &ldquo;Agostino has a taste for letters,
+      and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tcha! Tcha!&rdquo; he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply. &ldquo;I had no
+      thought for letters. There is my Lord Gambara, and there is Messer Cosimo
+      d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro. There is even Pordenone, the
+      painter.&rdquo; His lips writhed over their names. &ldquo;You have friends enough, I
+      think. Leave, then, Ser Agostino here. Do not dispute him with God to whom
+      he has been vowed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall,
+      and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked then to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is too much!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, madam,&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;I agree with you.&rdquo; She considered him with
+      eyes that held a loathing and contempt unutterable. Then she looked at me,
+      and shrugged her shoulders as who would say: &ldquo;You see how I am used!&rdquo;
+       Lastly she turned, and took her way across the lawn towards the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little silence between us after she had gone. I was on fire
+      with indignation, and yet I could think of no words in which I might
+      express it, realizing how utterly I lacked the right to be angry with a
+      husband for the manner in which he chose to treat his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, pondering me very gravely, he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were best you read no more with Madonna Giuliana,&rdquo; he said slowly.
+      &ldquo;Her tastes are not the tastes that become a man who is about to enter
+      holy orders.&rdquo; He closed the book, which hitherto he had held open; closed
+      it with an angry snap, and held it out to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Restore it to its shelf,&rdquo; he bade me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it, and quite submissively I went to do his bidding. But to gain
+      the library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room. It stood open, and
+      Giuliana herself in the doorway. We looked at each other, and seeing her
+      so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forward to
+      speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stretched forth a hand to me. I took it and held it tight, looking up
+      into her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Agostino!&rdquo; she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I,
+      distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for
+      the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Giuliana!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss the hand
+      which she had left in mine. And having kissed it I started upright and
+      made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and waved
+      me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and went to
+      shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give, I
+      avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were never
+      once together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna
+      sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,
+      being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial as
+      ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently
+      entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
+      Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and
+      Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of that
+      pedant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Explanation was about to be afforded me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was going
+      afoot into the town, and solicited my escort. It was an honour that never
+      before had been offered me. I reddened violently, but accepted it, and
+      soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'
+      Antonio, then in ruins&mdash;for Gambara was demolishing it and employing
+      the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that
+      garrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this new
+      building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and
+      so pursued our way into the city's main square&mdash;the Piazza del
+      Commune, overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace.
+      This was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a
+      very warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring
+      up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its
+      summit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of
+      rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching in
+      that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of the
+      sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies. The murmuring crowd
+      looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he had
+      been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the odious
+      sin of sacrilege.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna
+      Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo and
+      we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid me for the
+      lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable
+      indiscretions but for her warning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor
+      wretch for sacrilege!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is
+      infamous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so loud,&rdquo; she laughed. &ldquo;You are being stared at.&rdquo; And then she
+      delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. &ldquo;If a man being a
+      sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in
+      others, then is he twice a sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was my Lord Gambara taught you that,&rdquo; said I, and involuntarily I
+      sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She considered me with a very searching look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks
+      to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
+      sequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious
+      fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not love him?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O&mdash;as to that&mdash;as a man he is well enough. But as an
+      ecclesiastic...O, but there!&rdquo; I broke off shortly, and laughed. &ldquo;The devil
+      take Messer Gambara!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled. &ldquo;It is greatly to be feared that he will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But my Lord Gambara was not so lightly to be dismissed that afternoon. As
+      we were passing the Porta Fodesta, a little group of country-folk that had
+      gathered there fell away before us, all eyes upon the dazzling beauty of
+      Giuliana&mdash;as, indeed, had been the case ever since we had come into
+      the town, so that I had been singularly and sweetly proud of being her
+      escort. I had been conscious of the envious glances that many a tall
+      fellow had sent after me, though, after all, theirs was but as the
+      jealousy of Phoebus for Adonis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wherever we had passed and eyes had followed us, men and women had fallen
+      to whispering and pointing after us. And so did they now, here at the
+      Fodesta Gate, but with this difference, that, at last, I overheard for
+      once what was said, for there was one who did not whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There goes the leman of my Lord Gambara,&rdquo; quoth a gruff, sneering voice,
+      &ldquo;the light of love of the saintly legate who is starving Domenico to death
+      in a cage for the sin of sacrilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a doubt but that he would have added more, but that at that moment a
+      woman's shrill voice drowned his utterance. &ldquo;Silence, Giuffre!&rdquo; she
+      admonished him fearfully. &ldquo;Silence, on your life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had halted in my stride, suddenly cold from head to foot, as on that day
+      when I had flung Rinolfo from top to bottom of the terrace steps at
+      Mondolfo. It happened that I wore a sword for the first time in my life&mdash;a
+      matter from which I gathered great satisfaction&mdash;having been adjudged
+      worthy of the honour by virtue that I was to be Madonna's escort. To the
+      hilt I now set hand impetuously, and would have turned to strike that foul
+      slanderer dead, but that Giuliana restrained me, a wild alarm in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; she panted in a whisper. &ldquo;Come away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So imperious was the command that it conveyed to my mind some notion of
+      the folly I should commit did I not obey it. I saw at once that did I make
+      an ensample of this scurrilous scandalmonger I should thereby render her
+      the talk of that vile town. So I went on, but very white and stiff, and
+      breathing somewhat hard; for pent-up passion is an evil thing to house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus came we out of the town and to the shady banks of the gleaming Po.
+      And then, at last, when we were quite alone, and within two hundred yards
+      of Fifanti's house, I broke at last the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been thinking very busily, and the peasant's words had illumined for
+      me a score of little obscure matters, had explained to me the queer
+      behaviour and the odd speeches of Fifanti himself since that evening in
+      the garden when the Cardinal-legate had announced to him his appointment
+      as ducal secretary. I checked now in my stride, and turned to face her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it true?&rdquo; I asked, rendered brutally direct by a queer pain I felt as
+      a result of my thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up into my face so sadly and wistfully that my suspicions fell
+      from me upon the instant, and I reddened from shame at having harboured
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo; she cried, such a poor little cry of pain that I set my teeth
+      hard and bowed my head in self-contempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I looked at her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet the foul suspicion of that lout is shared by your husband himself,&rdquo;
+       said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The foul suspicion&mdash;yes,&rdquo; she answered, her eyes downcast, her
+      cheeks faintly tinted. And then, quite suddenly, she moved forward.
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she bade me. &ldquo;You are being foolish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be mad,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;ere I have done with this.&rdquo; And I fell into
+      step again beside her. &ldquo;If I could not avenge you there, I can avenge you
+      here.&rdquo; And I pointed to the house. &ldquo;I can smite this rumour at its foulest
+      point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hand fell on my arm. &ldquo;What would you do?&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bid your husband retract and sue to you for pardon, or else tear out his
+      lying throat,&rdquo; I answered, for I was in a great rage by now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stiffened suddenly. &ldquo;You go too fast, Messer Agostino,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;And
+      you are over-eager to enter into that which does not concern you. I do not
+      know that I have given you the right to demand of my husband reason of the
+      manner in which he deals with me. It is a thing that touches only my
+      husband and myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was abashed; I was humiliated; I was nigh to tears. I choked it all
+      down, and I strode on beside her, my rage smouldering within me. But it
+      was flaring up again by the time we reached the house with no more words
+      spoken between us. She went to her room without another glance at me, and
+      I repaired straight in quest of Fifanti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found him in the library. He had locked himself in, as was his frequent
+      habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock. I stalked in,
+      unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner. Then I turned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor,&rdquo; said I, with all
+      the directness of youth and indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me as if I had struck him&mdash;as he might have stared,
+      rather, at a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back
+      for the child's good, or to be amused and smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;She has been talking to you?&rdquo; And he clasped his
+      hands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legs
+      wide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have been thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case nothing will surprise me,&rdquo; he said in his sour, contemptuous
+      manner. &ldquo;And so you have concluded...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfort
+      me,&rdquo; he sneered. &ldquo;And what, pray, is this suspicion?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You suspect that... that&mdash;O God! I can't utter the thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take courage,&rdquo; he mocked me. And he thrust his head farther forward. He
+      looked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara and Madonna...
+      that...&rdquo; I clenched my hands together, and looked into his leering face.
+      &ldquo;You understand me well enough,&rdquo; I cried, almost angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me seriously now, a cold glitter in his small eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder do you understand yourself?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I think not. I think
+      not. Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you a
+      priest, and thus complete God's work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot move me by your taunts,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You have a foul mind, Messer
+      Fifanti.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on the
+      wooden floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara
+      and Madonna... that... You understand me,&rdquo; he mocked me, with a mimicry of
+      my own confusion. &ldquo;And what affair may it be of yours whom I suspect or of
+      what I suspect them where my own are concerned?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my affair, as it is the affair of every man who would be accounted
+      gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady from the foul
+      aspersions of slander.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knight-errantry, by the Host!&rdquo; quoth he, and his brows shot up on his
+      steep brow. Then they came down again to scowl. &ldquo;No doubt, my
+      preux-chevalier, you will have definite knowledge of the groundlessness of
+      these same slanders,&rdquo; he said, moving backwards, away from me, towards the
+      door; and as he moved now his feet made no sound, though I did not yet
+      notice this nor, indeed, his movement at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowledge?&rdquo; I roared at him. &ldquo;What knowledge can you need beyond what is
+      afforded by her face? Look in it, Messer Fifanti, if you would see
+      innocence and purity and chastity! Look in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Let us look in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And quite suddenly he pulled the door open to disclose Giuliana standing
+      there, erect but in a listening attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look in it!&rdquo; he mocked me, and waved one of his bony hands towards that
+      perfect countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was shame and confusion in her face, and some anger. But she turned
+      without a word, and went quickly down the passage, followed by his evil,
+      cackling laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he looked at me quite solemnly. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you had best get
+      to your studies. You will find more than enough to engage you there. Leave
+      my affairs to me, boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was almost a menace in his voice, and after what had happened it was
+      impossible to pursue the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sheepishly, overwhelmed with confusion, I went out&mdash;a knight-errant
+      with a shorn crest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I had angered her! Worse; I had exposed her to humiliation at the hands of
+      that unworthy animal who soiled her in thought with the slime of his
+      suspicions. Through me she had been put to the shameful need of listening
+      at a door, and had been subjected to the ignominy of being so discovered.
+      Through me she had been mocked and derided!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all anguish to me. For her there was no shame, no humiliation, no
+      pain I would not suffer, and take joy in the suffering so that it be for
+      her. But to have submitted that sweet, angelic woman to suffering&mdash;to
+      have incurred her just anger! Woe me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy, feeling
+      it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it her regard
+      or her neglect. To my relief she sent word that she was not well and would
+      keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked his blue chin and
+      gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when the meal was done,
+      I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and went to shut myself
+      up again in my room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir. I went
+      down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the wet
+      grass that was all scintillant with dew. On the marble bench by the pond,
+      where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and there
+      was I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I had
+      no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled me out
+      of my musings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?&rdquo; quoth she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned to meet her laughing eyes. &ldquo;You... you can forgive me?&rdquo; I
+      faltered foolishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pouted tenderly. &ldquo;Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly out
+      of love for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was, it was...&rdquo; I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling
+      myself growing red under her lazy glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it was,&rdquo; she answered. She set her elbows on the seat's tall back
+      until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow. &ldquo;And should I bear you a
+      resentment, then? My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel? Am I but a
+      cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband? O God! To have
+      been mated to that withered pedant! To have been sacrificed, to have been
+      sold into such bondage! Me miserable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Giuliana!&rdquo; I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; I implored her. &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But though I begged her to be silent, my soul was avid for more such words
+      from her&mdash;from her, the most perfect and beautiful of women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I not?&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Is truth ever to be stifled? Ever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was mad, I know&mdash;quite mad. Her words had made me so. And when, to
+      ask me that insistent question, she brought her face still nearer, I flung
+      down the reins of my unreason and let it ride amain upon its desperate,
+      reckless course. In short, I too leaned forward, I leaned forward, and I
+      kissed her full upon those scarlet, parted lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I kissed her, and fell back with a cry that was of anguish almost&mdash;so
+      poignantly had the sweet, fierce pain of that kiss run through my every
+      fibre. And as I cried out, so too did she, stepping back, her hands
+      suddenly to her face. But the next moment she was peering up at the
+      windows of the house&mdash;those inscrutable eyes that looked upon our
+      deed; that looked and of which it was impossible to discern how much they
+      might have seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he should have seen us!&rdquo; was her cry; and it moved me unpleasantly
+      that such should have been the first thought my kiss inspired in her. &ldquo;If
+      he should have seen us! Gesu! I have enough to bear already!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I care not,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Let him see. I am not Messer Gambara. No man shall
+      put an insult upon you on my account, and live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was become the very ranting, roaring, fire-breathing type of lover who
+      will slaughter a whole world to do pleasure to his mistress or to spare
+      her pain&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;I, Agostino d'Anguissola&mdash;who was to
+      be ordained next month and walk in the ways of St. Augustine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Laugh as you read&mdash;for very pity, laugh!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay,&rdquo; she reassured herself. &ldquo;He will be still abed. He was snoring
+      when I left.&rdquo; And she dismissed her fears, and looked at me again, and
+      returned to the matter of that kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you done to me, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dropped my glance before her languid eyes. &ldquo;What I have done to no other
+      woman yet,&rdquo; I answered, a certain gloom creeping over the exultation that
+      still thrilled me. &ldquo;O Giuliana, what have you done to me? You have
+      bewitched me; You have made me mad!&rdquo; And I set my elbows on my knees and
+      took my head in my hands, and sat there, overwhelmed now by the full
+      consciousness of the irrevocable thing that I had done, a thing that must
+      brand my soul for ever, so it seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To have kissed a maid would have been ill enough for one whose aims were
+      mine. But to kiss a wife, to become a cicisbeo! The thing assumed in my
+      mind proportions foolishly, extravagantly beyond its evil reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are cruel, Agostino,&rdquo; she whispered behind me. She had come to lean
+      again upon the back of the bench. &ldquo;Am I alone to blame? Can the iron
+      withstand the lodestone? Can the rain help falling upon the earth? Can the
+      stream flow other than downhill?&rdquo; She sighed. &ldquo;Woe me! It is I who should
+      be angered that you have made free of my lips. And yet I am here, wooing
+      you to forgive me for the sin that is your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I cried out at that and turned to her again, and I was very white, I know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tempted me!&rdquo; was my coward's cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So said Adam once. Yet God thought otherwise, for Adam was as fully
+      punished as was Eve.&rdquo; She smiled wistfully into my eyes, and my senses
+      reeled again. And then old Busio, the servant, came suddenly forth from
+      the house upon some domestic errand to Giuliana, and thus was that
+      situation mercifully brought to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning, reciting
+      to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in memory the
+      vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti
+      when I came to my studies with him later. He grew more peevish with me
+      than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the
+      wisdom of those who had determined upon a claustral life for me, admitting
+      that I knew enough Latin to enable me to celebrate as well as another
+      without too clear a knowledge of the meaning of what I pattered. All of
+      which was grossly untrue, for, as none knew better than himself, the
+      fluency of my Latin was above the common wont of students. When I told him
+      so, he delivered himself of his opinion upon the common wont of students
+      with all the sourness of his crabbed nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll write an ode for you upon any subject that you may set me,&rdquo; I
+      challenged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then write one upon impudence,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It is a subject you should
+      understand.&rdquo; And upon that he got up and flung out of the room in a pet
+      before I could think of an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone, I began an ode which should prove to him his lack of justice.
+      But I got no further than two lines of it. Then for a spell I sat biting
+      my quill, my mind and the eyes of my soul full of Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently I began to write again. It was not an ode, but a prayer, oddly
+      profane&mdash;and it was in Italian, in the &ldquo;dialettale&rdquo; that provoked
+      Fifanti's sneers. How it ran I have forgotten these many years. But I
+      recall that in it I likened myself to a sailor navigating shoals and
+      besought the pharos of Giuliana's eyes to bring me safely through,
+      besought her to anoint me with her glance and so hearten me to brave the
+      dangers of that procellous sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read it first with satisfaction, then with dismay as I realized to the
+      full its amorous meaning. Lastly I tore it up and went below to dine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were still at table when my Lord Gambara arrived. He came on horseback
+      attended by two grooms whom he left to await him. He was all in black
+      velvet, I remember, even to his thigh-boots which were laced up the sides
+      with gold, and on his breast gleamed a fine medallion of diamonds. Of the
+      prelate there was about him, as usual, nothing but the scarlet cloak and
+      the sapphire ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti rose and set a chair for him, smiling a crooked smile that held
+      more hostility than welcome. None the less did his excellency pay Madonna
+      Giuliana a thousand compliments as he took his seat, supremely calm and
+      easy in his manner. I watched him closely, and I watched Giuliana, a queer
+      fresh uneasiness pervading me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The talk was trivial and chiefly concerned with the progress of the
+      barracks the legate was building and the fine new road from the middle of
+      the city to the Church of Santa Chiara, which he intended should be called
+      the Via Gambara, but which, despite his intentions, is known to-day as the
+      Stradone Farnese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently my cousin arrived, full-armed and very martial by contrast with
+      the velvety Cardinal. He frowned to see Messer Gambara, then effaced the
+      frown and smiled as, one by one, he greeted us. Last of all he turned to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how fares his saintliness?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, none too saintly,&rdquo; said I, speaking my thoughts aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed. &ldquo;Why, then, the sooner we are in orders, the sooner shall we
+      be on the road to mending that. Is it not so, Messer Fifanti?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His ordination will profit you, I nothing doubt,&rdquo; said Fifanti, with his
+      habitual discourtesy and acidity. &ldquo;So you do well to urge it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer put my cousin entirely out of countenance a moment. It was a
+      blunt way of reminding me that in this Cosimo I saw one who followed after
+      me in the heirship to Mondolfo, and in whose interests it was that I
+      should don the conventual scapulary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Cosimo's haughty face and cruel mouth, and conjectured in that
+      hour whether I should have found him so very civil and pleasant a cousin
+      had things been other than they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O, a very serpent was Messer Fifanti; and I have since wondered whether of
+      intent he sought to sow in my heart hatred of my guelphic cousin, that he
+      might make of me a tool for his own service&mdash;as you shall come to
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Cosimo, having recovered, waved aside the imputation, and
+      smiled easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, there you wrong me. The Anguissola lose more than I shall gain by
+      Agostino's renunciation of the world. And I am sorry for it. You believe
+      me, cousin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered his courteous speech as it deserved, in very courteous terms.
+      This set a pleasanter humour upon all. Yet some restraint abode. Each sat,
+      it seemed, as a man upon his guard. My cousin watched Gambara's every look
+      whenever the latter turned to speak to Giuliana; the Cardinal-legate did
+      the like by him; and Messer Fifanti watched them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, meantime, Giuliana sat there, listening now to one, now to the other,
+      her lazy smile parting those scarlet lips&mdash;those lips that I had
+      kissed that morning&mdash;I, whom no one thought of watching!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And soon came Messer Annibale Caro, with lines from the last pages of his
+      translation oozing from him. And when presently Giuliana smote her hands
+      together in ecstatic pleasure at one of those same lines and bade him
+      repeat it to her, he swore roundly by all the gods that are mentioned in
+      Virgil that he would dedicate the work to her upon its completion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the surliness became general once more and my Lord Gambara
+      ventured the opinion&mdash;and there was a note of promise, almost of
+      threat, in his sleek tones&mdash;that the Duke would shortly be needing
+      Messer Caro's presence in Parma; whereupon Messer Caro cursed the Duke
+      roundly and with all a poet's volubility of invective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stayed late, each intent, no doubt, upon outstaying the others. But
+      since none would give way they were forced in the end to depart together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whilst Messer Fifanti, as became a host, was seeing them to their
+      horses, I was left alone with Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you suffer those men?&rdquo; I asked her bluntly. Her delicate brows
+      were raised in surprise. &ldquo;Why, what now? They are very pleasant gentlemen,
+      Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too pleasant,&rdquo; said I, and rising I crossed to the window whence I could
+      watch them getting to horse, all save Caro, who had come afoot. &ldquo;Too
+      pleasant by much. That prelate out of Hell, now...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh!&rdquo; she hissed at me, smiling, her hand raised. &ldquo;Should he hear you, he
+      might send you to the cage for sacrilege. O Agostino!&rdquo; she cried, and the
+      smiles all vanished from her face. &ldquo;Will you grow cruel and suspicious,
+      too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was disarmed. I realized my meanness and unworthiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have patience with me,&rdquo; I implored her. &ldquo;I... I am not myself to-day.&rdquo; I
+      sighed ponderously, and fell silent as I watched them ride away. Yet I
+      hated them all; and most of all I hated the dainty, perfumed,
+      golden-headed Cardinal-legate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came again upon the morrow, and we learnt from the news of which he was
+      the bearer that he had carried out his threat concerning Messer Caro. The
+      poet was on his way to Parma, to Duke Pier Luigi, dispatched thither on a
+      mission of importance by the Cardinal. He spoke, too, of sending my cousin
+      to Perugia, where a strong hand was needed, as the town showed signs of
+      mutiny against the authority of the Holy See.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had departed, Messer Fifanti permitted himself one of his bitter
+      insinuations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He desires a clear field,&rdquo; he said, smiling his cold smile upon Giuliana.
+      &ldquo;It but remains for him to discover that his Duke has need of me as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke of it as a possible contingency, but sarcastically, as men speak
+      of things too remote to be seriously considered. He was to remember his
+      words two days later when the very thing came to pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were at breakfast when the blow fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came a clatter of hooves under our windows, which stood open to the
+      tepid September morning, and soon there was old Busio ushering in an
+      officer of the Pontificals with a parchment tied in scarlet silk and
+      sealed with the arms of Piacenza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Messer Fifanti took the package and weighed it in his hand, frowning.
+      Perhaps already some foreboding of the nature of its contents was in his
+      mind. Meanwhile, Giuliana poured wine for the officer, and Busio bore him
+      the cup upon a salver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti ripped away silk and seals, and set himself to read. I can see him
+      now, standing near the window to which he had moved to gain a better
+      light, the parchment under his very nose, his short-sighted eyes screwed
+      up as he acquainted himself with the letter's contents. Then I saw him
+      turn a sickly leaden hue. He stared at the officer a moment and then at
+      Giuliana. But I do not think that he saw either of them. His look was the
+      blank look of one whose thoughts are very distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust his hands behind him, and with head forward, in that curious
+      attitude so reminiscent of a bird of prey, he stepped slowly back to his
+      place at the table-head. Slowly his cheeks resumed their normal tint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, sir,&rdquo; he said, addressing the officer. &ldquo;Inform his excellency
+      that I shall obey the summons of the Duke's magnificence without delay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer bowed to Giuliana, took his leave, and went, old Busio
+      escorting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A summons from the Duke?&rdquo; cried Giuliana, and then the storm broke
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; he answered, grimly quiet, &ldquo;a summons from the Duke.&rdquo; And he tossed
+      it across the table to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw that fateful document float an instant in the air, and then, thrown
+      out of poise by the blob of wax, swoop slanting to her lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will come no doubt as a surprise to you,&rdquo; he growled; and upon that
+      his hard-held passion burst all bonds that he could impose upon it. His
+      great bony fist crashed down upon the board and swept a precious Venetian
+      beaker to the ground, where it burst into a thousand atoms, spreading red
+      wine like a bloodstain upon the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said I not that this rascal Cardinal would make a clear field for
+      himself? Said I not so?&rdquo; He laughed shrill and fiercely. &ldquo;He would send
+      your husband packing as he has sent his other rivals. O, there is a
+      stipend waiting&mdash;a stipend of three hundred ducats yearly that shall
+      be made into six hundred presently, and all for my complaisance, all that
+      I may be a joyous and content cornuto!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He strode to the window cursing horribly, whilst Giuliana sat white of
+      face with lips compressed and heaving bosom, her eyes upon her plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Cardinal and his Duke may take themselves together to Hell ere I
+      obey the summons that the one has sent me at the desire of the other. Here
+      I stay to guard what is my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a fool,&rdquo; said Giuliana at length, &ldquo;and a knave, too, for you
+      insult me without cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without cause? O, without cause, eh? By the Host! Yet you would not have
+      me stay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey the
+      Duke's magnificence,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gaoled?&rdquo; quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of
+      his passion. &ldquo;Caged, perhaps&mdash;to die of hunger and thirst and
+      exposure, like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last,
+      because he dared to speak the truth. Gesu!&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;O, miserable me!&rdquo;
+       And he sank into a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving
+      fiercely. &ldquo;By the Eyes of God! They shall have cause to cage me. If I am
+      to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns. I'll gore their
+      vitals. O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you
+      should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was too much. I leapt to my feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Messer Fifanti,&rdquo; I blazed at him. &ldquo;I'll not remain to hear such words
+      addressed to this sweet lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike me.
+      &ldquo;I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in embryo! You
+      will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?&rdquo; And he strode, mouthing, to
+      the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the wall. &ldquo;This is
+      your remedy. Get you hence! Go! What passes here concerns you not. Go!&rdquo; he
+      roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly invited
+      her to tell me how she would have me act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, you had best go, Agostino,&rdquo; she answered sadly. &ldquo;I shall bear his
+      insults easier if there be no witness. Yes, go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since it is your wish, Madonna,&rdquo; I bowed to her, and very erect, very
+      defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out. I heard
+      the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon Busio, who
+      was wringing his hand and looking very white. He ran to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will murder her, Messer Agostino,&rdquo; moaned the old man. &ldquo;He can be a
+      devil in his anger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a devil always, in anger and out of it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;He needs an
+      exorcist. It is a task that I should relish. I'd beat the devils out of
+      him, Busio, and she would let me. Meanwhile, stay we here, and if she
+      needs our help, it shall be hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dropped on to the carved settle that stood there, old Busio standing at
+      my elbow, more tranquil now that there was help at hand for Madonna in
+      case of need. And through the door came the sound of his storming, and
+      presently the crash of more broken glassware, as once more he thumped the
+      table. For well-high half an hour his fury lasted, and it was seldom that
+      her voice was interposed. Once we heard her laugh, cold and cutting as a
+      sword's edge, and I shivered at the sound, for it was not good to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the door was opened and he came forth. His face was inflamed, his
+      eyes wild and blood-injected. He paused for a moment on the threshold, but
+      I do not think that he noticed us at first. He looked back at her over his
+      shoulder, still sitting at table, the outline of her white-gowned body
+      sharply defined against the deep blue tapestry of the wall behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are warned,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Do you heed the warning!&rdquo; And he came forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perceiving me at last where I sat, he bared his broken teeth in a snarling
+      smile. But it was to Busio that he spoke. &ldquo;Have my mule saddled for me in
+      an hour,&rdquo; he said, and passed on and up the stairs to make his
+      preparations. It seemed, therefore, that she had conquered his suspicions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went in to offer her comfort, for she was weeping and all shaken by that
+      cruel encounter. But she waved me away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now, Agostino. Not now,&rdquo; she implored me. &ldquo;Leave me to myself, my
+      friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not been her friend had I not obeyed her without question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was late that afternoon when Astorre Fifanti set out. He addressed a
+      few brief words to me, informing me that he should return within four
+      days, betide what might, setting me tasks upon which I was meanwhile to
+      work, and bidding me keep the house and be circumspect during his absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the window of my room I saw the doctor get astride his mule. He was
+      girt with a big sword, but he still wore his long, absurd and shabby gown
+      and his loose, ill-fitting shoes, so that it was very likely that the
+      stirrup-leathers would engage his thoughts ere he had ridden far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw him dig his heels into the beast's sides and go ambling down the
+      little avenue and out at the gate. In the road he drew rein, and stood in
+      talk some moments with a lad who idled there, a lad whom he was wont to
+      employ upon odd tasks about the garden and elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Madonna also saw, for she was watching his departure from the window
+      of a room below. That she attached more importance to that little
+      circumstance than did I, I was to learn much later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he pushed on, and I watched him as he dwindled down the long grey
+      road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost to view&mdash;for
+      all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle hope been
+      realized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I supped alone that night with no other company than Busio's, who
+      ministered to my needs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madonna sent word that she would keep her chamber. When I had supped and
+      after night had fallen I went upstairs to the library, and, shutting
+      myself in, I attempted to read, lighted by the three beaks of the tall
+      brass lamp that stood upon the table. Being plagued by moths, I drew the
+      curtains close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with
+      the opening lines of the [Title in Greek] of Aeschylus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at
+      last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought,
+      in doubt, and in conjecture. I became seriously introspective. I made an
+      examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found
+      that I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for
+      me. Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last
+      talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me. That
+      memory inspired me rightly. To-morrow&mdash;despite Messer Fifanti's
+      orders&mdash;I would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess
+      myself to Fra Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel. My mother's vows
+      concerning me I saw in their true light. They were not binding upon me;
+      indeed, I should be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against my
+      inclinations. I must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had
+      vowed or ever I was born, however much she might account that it would be
+      no more than filial piety so to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that mind
+      of mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of Giuliana&mdash;Giuliana
+      for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still sought to conceal from
+      myself the true cause of my suffering. Better a thousand times had I
+      envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it boldly. Thus should I have
+      had a chance of conquering myself and winning clear of all the horror that
+      lay before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed
+      strength, I still think to-day&mdash;when I can take a calm survey of all&mdash;was
+      the fault of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo they had so
+      nurtured me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of the world that
+      I was grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the Devil's mouth.
+      The things to whose temptation usage would have rendered me in some degree
+      immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored as had I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
+      riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in
+      which the Devil has the cunning to array it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of where I stood and in
+      what perils were to play the hypocrite. Largely I knew; just as I knew
+      that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight. And
+      to-morrow I would go. That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile,
+      turned down. And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of
+      this hunger that was upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the door
+      was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me. She
+      detached from the black background of the passage, and the light of my
+      three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there was a
+      luminous nimbus all about her head. For a moment this gave colour to my
+      fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness of my
+      thoughts. The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was almost
+      diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful. Only in the
+      vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her. &ldquo;Giuliana!&rdquo; I murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you sit so late?&rdquo; she asked me, and closed the door as she spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been thinking, Giuliana,&rdquo; I answered wearily, and I passed a hand
+      over my brow to find it moist and clammy. &ldquo;To-morrow I go hence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her
+      breast. &ldquo;You go hence?&rdquo; she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.
+      &ldquo;Hence? Whither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came slowly towards me. &ldquo;And... and then?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then? I do not know. What God wills. But the scapulary is not for me.
+      I am unworthy. I have no call. This I now know. And sooner than be such a
+      priest as Messer Gambara&mdash;of whom there are too many in the Church
+      to-day&mdash;I will find some other way of serving God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since... since when have you thought thus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since this morning, when I kissed you,&rdquo; I answered fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to
+      me, inviting the clasp of mine. &ldquo;But if this is so, why leave us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am afraid,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Because... O God! Giuliana, do you not
+      see?&rdquo; And I sank my head into my hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steps shuffled along the corridor. I looked up sharply. She set a finger
+      to her lips. There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks
+      for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I started up as if I had been stung. So! At this hour! Then Messer
+      Fifanti's suspicions did not entirely lack for grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giuliana flashed me a glance ere she made answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will tell my Lord Gambara that I have retired for the night and
+      that... But stay!&rdquo; She caught up a quill and dipped it in the ink-horn,
+      drew paper to herself, and swiftly wrote three lines; then dusted it with
+      sand, and proffered that brief epistle to the servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give this to my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Busio took the note, bowed, and departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the door had closed a silence followed, in which I paced the room in
+      long strides, aflame now with the all-consuming fire of jealousy. I do
+      believe that Satan had set all the legions of hell to achieve my overthrow
+      that night. Naught more had been needed to undo me than this spur of
+      jealousy. It brought me now to her side. I stood over her, looking down at
+      her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my glance with such a
+      look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why dared he come?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps... perhaps some affair connected with Astorre...&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sneered. &ldquo;That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to
+      Parma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there was aught else, I am no party to it,&rdquo; she assured me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could I do other than believe her? How could I gauge the turpitude of
+      that beauty's mind&mdash;I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches
+      women? How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that
+      lad at the gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon
+      the house, and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone? I
+      knew it later. But not then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you swear that it is as you say?&rdquo; I asked her, white with passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have said, I was standing over her and very close. Her answer now was
+      suddenly to rise. Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms until
+      she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly veiled,
+      her lips a-pout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I love
+      you?&rdquo; she asked me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant we swayed together in that sweetly hideous embrace. I was
+      as a man sapped of all strength by some portentous struggle. I trembled
+      from head to foot. I cried out once&mdash;a despairing prayer for help, I
+      think it was&mdash;and then I seemed to plunge headlong down through an
+      immensity of space until my lips found hers. The ecstasy, the living fire,
+      the anguish, and the torture of it have left their indelible scars upon my
+      memory. Even as I write the cruelly sweet poignancy of that moment is with
+      me again&mdash;though very hateful now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus I, blindly and recklessly, under the sway and thrall of that terrific
+      and overpowering temptation. And then there leapt in my mind a glimmer of
+      returning consciousness: a glimmer that grew rapidly to be a blazing light
+      in which I saw revealed the hideousness of the thing I did. I tore myself
+      away from her in that second of revulsion and hurled her from me, fiercely
+      and violently, so that, staggering to the seat from which she had risen,
+      she fell into it rather than sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whilst, breathless with parted lips and galloping bosom, she observed
+      me, something near akin to terror in her eyes, I stamped about that room
+      and raved and heaped abuse and recriminations upon myself, ending by going
+      down upon my knees to her, imploring her forgiveness for the thing I had
+      done&mdash;believing like a fatuous fool that it was all my doing&mdash;and
+      imploring her still more passionately to leave me and to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She set a trembling hand upon my head; she took my chin in the other, and
+      raised my face until she could look into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it be your will&mdash;if it will bring you peace and happiness, I will
+      leave you now and never see you more. But are you not deluded, my
+      Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, as if her self-control gave way, she fell to weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what of me if you go? What of me wedded to that monster, to that
+      cruel and inhuman pedant who tortures and insults me as you have seen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beloved, will another wrong cure the wrong of that?&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;O, if
+      you love me, go&mdash;go, leave me. It is too late&mdash;too late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I drew away from her touch, and crossed the room to fling myself upon the
+      window-seat. For a space we sat apart thus, panting like wrestlers who
+      have flung away from each other. At length&mdash;&ldquo;Listen, Giuliana,&rdquo; I
+      said more calmly. &ldquo;Were I to heed you, were I to obey my own desires, I
+      should bid you come away with me from this to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you but would!&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;You would be taking me out of hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Into another worse,&rdquo; I countered swiftly. &ldquo;I should do you such a wrong
+      as naught could ever right again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me for a spell in silence. Her back was to the light and her
+      face in shadow, so that I could not read what passed there. Then, very
+      slowly, like one utterly weary, she got to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do your will, beloved; but I do it not for the wrong that I should
+      suffer&mdash;for that I should count no wrong&mdash;but for the wrong that
+      I should be doing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused as if for an answer. I had none for her. I raised my arms, then
+      let them fall again, and bowed my head. I heard the gentle rustle of her
+      robe, and I looked up to see her staggering towards the door, her arms in
+      front of her like one who is blind. She reached it, pulled it open, and
+      from the threshold gave me one last ineffable look of her great eyes,
+      heavy now with tears. Then the door closed again, and I was alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From my heart there rose a great surge of thankfulness. I fell upon my
+      knees and prayed. For an hour at least I must have knelt there, seeking
+      grace and strength; and comforted at last, my calm restored, I rose, and
+      went to the window. I drew back the curtains, and leaned out to breathe
+      the physical calm of that tepid September night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And presently out of the gloom a great grey shape came winging towards the
+      window, the heavy pinions moving ponderously with their uncanny sough. It
+      was an owl attracted by the light. Before that bird of evil omen, that
+      harbinger of death, I drew back and crossed myself. I had a sight of its
+      sphinx-like face and round, impassive eyes ere it circled to melt again
+      into the darkness, startled by any sudden movement. I closed the window
+      and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very softly I crept down the passage towards my chamber, leaving the light
+      burning in the library, for it was not my habit to extinguish it, and I
+      gave no thought to the lateness of the hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Midway down the passage I halted. I was level with Giuliana's door, and
+      from under it there came a slender blade of light. But it was not this
+      that checked me. She was singing, Such a pitiful little heartbroken song
+      it was:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Amor mi muojo; mi muojo amore mio!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      ran its last line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I leaned against the wall, and a sob broke from me. Then, in an instant,
+      the passage was flooded with light, and in the open doorway Giuliana stood
+      all white before me, her arms held out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE IRON GIRDLE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From the distance, drawing rapidly nearer and ringing sharply in the
+      stillness of the night, came the clatter of a mule's hooves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, though heard, it was scarcely heard consciously, and it certainly
+      went unheeded until it was beneath the window and ceasing at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giuliana's fingers locked themselves upon my arm in a grip of fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who comes?&rdquo; she asked, below her breath, fearfully. I sprang from the bed
+      and crouched, listening, by the window, and so lost precious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of the darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now and
+      trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be Astorre,&rdquo; she said, with conviction. &ldquo;At this hour it can be
+      none else. I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gate this
+      afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him wherever he was
+      lurking, did the need arise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how should the boy know...?&rdquo; I began, when she interrupted me almost
+      impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up. He waited for no more, but went at
+      once to warn Astorre. He has been long in coming,&rdquo; she added in the tone
+      of one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thing that
+      is happening. And then, suddenly and very urgently, &ldquo;Go, go&mdash;go
+      quickly!&rdquo; she bade me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does he not knock? For what does he wait?&rdquo; Immediately, from the
+      stairs, came a terrific answer to her question&mdash;the unmistakable,
+      slip-slopping footstep of the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered I
+      could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful fact
+      that he was in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and groping
+      forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the
+      very steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close it after
+      me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of the light
+      Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which way to turn. My
+      first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt it were assuredly
+      to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftly and stealthily as
+      possible towards the library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
+      sight of me before I had closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting,
+      and trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a
+      glimpse of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
+      haste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other. His
+      face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone yellow. The
+      fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound between a roar and a
+      snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping down the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to seat myself at the table, a book
+      before me, and feigning slumber, present the appearance of one who had
+      been overcome by weariness at his labours. But now all thought of that was
+      at an end. I had been seen, and that I fled was all too apparent. So that
+      in every way I was betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thing I did, I did upon instinct rather than reason; and this again
+      was not well done. I slammed the door, and turned the key, placing at
+      least that poor barrier between myself and the man I had so deeply
+      wronged, the man whom I had given the right to slay me. A second later the
+      door shook as if a hurricane had smitten it. He had seized the handle, and
+      he was pulling at it frenziedly with a maniacal strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open!&rdquo; he thundered, and fell to snarling and whimpering horribly.
+      &ldquo;Open!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, quite abruptly he became oddly calm. It was as if his rage grew
+      coldly purposeful; and the next words he uttered acted upon me as a
+      dagger-prod, and reawakened my mind from its momentary stupefaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my Lord
+      Gambara?&rdquo; quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Gambara! He mistook me for the Legate! In an instant I saw the
+      reason of this. It was as Giuliana had conceived. The boy had run to warn
+      him wherever he was&mdash;at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon the
+      road to Parma. And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had gone
+      to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate come forth
+      again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was Gambara
+      whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had the right to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lain
+      between us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom he
+      expected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled before
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed. For
+      no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme how I
+      might profit by it. Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place if the
+      thing could be contrived. If not in fact, at least in intent, the
+      Cardinal-legate had certainly sinned. If he was not in my place now, it
+      was through the too great good fortune that attended him. Besides, Gambara
+      would be in better case to protect himself from the consequences and from
+      Fifanti's anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window. If I
+      could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my own
+      chamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at that
+      door. Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, as
+      he mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough. You would
+      plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you are gored by
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he laughed hideously. &ldquo;This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a fool.
+      He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit my Lord
+      Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you that suspicious
+      husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they remain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door was shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you open, then, or must I break down the door! There is no barrier
+      in the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you. I
+      have the right to kill you by every law of God and man. Shall I forgo that
+      right?&rdquo; He laughed snarlingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have given
+      you&mdash;and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!&rdquo; he mocked.
+      &ldquo;That was the price, my lord, of my hospitality&mdash;which was to include
+      my wife's harlotry. Three hundred ducats! Ha! ha! Three hundred thousand
+      million years in Hell! That is the price, my lord&mdash;the price that you
+      shall pay, for I present the reckoning and enforce it. You shall be
+      shriven in iron&mdash;you and your wanton after you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for having
+      sent a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it? Shall I?
+      Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledge
+      inform me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomous
+      mockery. But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open. I peered down
+      into the darkness and hesitated. The wall was creeper-clad to the window's
+      height; but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis would never bear
+      me. I hesitated. Then I resolved to jump. It was but little more than some
+      twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to daunt an active lad of
+      my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below. It should have been
+      done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitation was my ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, after
+      all, his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like an
+      infuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater than
+      his usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at me,
+      too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was overwhelming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he gasped, and then his voice mounting&mdash;&ldquo;You dog!&rdquo; he
+      screamed. &ldquo;So it was you! You!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with
+      horrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise. &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he
+      repeated. &ldquo;Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the ways of St.
+      Augustine&mdash;in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you
+      postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night&mdash;with
+      this!&rdquo; And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped
+      down the livid blade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!&rdquo; And thereupon he leapt at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden
+      activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of
+      Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He
+      avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement
+      that was still closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the
+      door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber between
+      us, both of us breathing hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; for it was
+      plain that he meant to have my life. By a great ill-chance it happened
+      that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as Giuliana's
+      escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner where I had set
+      it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti, never suspecting my
+      quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand, did nothing to prevent
+      my reaching it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing me armed, he laughed. &ldquo;Ho, ho! The saint-at-arms!&rdquo; he mocked.
+      &ldquo;You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!&rdquo; And he advanced upon
+      me in long stealthy strides. The width of the table was between us, and he
+      smote at me across it. I parried, and cut back at him, for being armed
+      now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child. Little he
+      knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thing which once
+      learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make us slow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke. And now, I
+      can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there was no
+      intent. It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening. I
+      had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what they have
+      been taught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard of Marozzo's
+      which is known as the iron girdle. I parried and on the stroke I lunged,
+      and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank the half of my
+      iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that the thing was
+      possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of his face
+      become one of intense astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from his
+      one hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, still
+      looking at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on to my
+      rigidly held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons. For
+      a moment he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mine and
+      the table against which his weight was leaning. Then I withdrew the blade,
+      and in the same movement flung the weapon from me. Before the sword had
+      rattled to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heap beyond the table,
+      so that I could see no more than the yellow, egg-like top of his bald
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity and a
+      queer awe. Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I had
+      done. It might be that I had killed Fifanti. It might be. And slowly,
+      gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of its horrid
+      meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then from the passage came a stifled scream, and Giuliana staggered
+      forward, one hand holding flimsy draperies to her heaving bosom, the other
+      at her mouth, which had grown hideously loose and uncontrolled. Her
+      glowing copper hair, all unbound, fell about her shoulders like a mantle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind her with ashen face and trembling limbs came old Busio. He was
+      groaning and ringing his hands. Thus I saw the pair of them creep forward
+      to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword had gone through
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them&mdash;the faithful servant
+      and the unfaithful wife. All that remained, huddled there at the foot of
+      the table, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Giuliana who gave me the information. With a courage that was
+      almost stupendous she looked down into his face, then up into mine, which
+      I doubt not was as livid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have killed him,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;He is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was dead and I had killed him! My lips moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have killed me,&rdquo; I answered in a strangled voice, and knew that
+      what I said was a sort of lie to cloak the foulness of my deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Busio uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees beside
+      the master he had served so long&mdash;the master who would never more
+      need servant in this world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was upon the wings of that pitiful cry that the full understanding of
+      the thing I had done was borne in upon my soul. I bowed my head, and took
+      my face in my hands. I saw myself in that moment for what I was. I
+      accounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement,
+      surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency could
+      find no pardon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities;
+      all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in this hour's
+      work. And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant, who indeed
+      had been my victim&mdash;whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing and
+      self-contempt. And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror of it all
+      was full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft, quivering
+      voice murmured urgently in my ear:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino, we must go; we must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which she
+      shrank in fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We?&rdquo; I snarled at her. &ldquo;We?&rdquo; I repeated still more fiercely, and drove
+      her back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O, I should have imagined&mdash;had I had time in which to imagine
+      anything&mdash;that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit
+      of infamy. But it seems that one more downward step remained me; and that
+      step I took. Not by act, nor yet by speech, but just by thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For without the manliness to take the whole blame of this great crime upon
+      myself, I must in my soul and mind fling the burden of it upon her. Like
+      Adam of old, I blamed the woman, and charged her in my thoughts with
+      having tempted me. Charging her thus, I loathed her as the cause of all
+      this sin that had engulfed me; loathed her in that moment as a thing
+      unclean and hideous; loathed her with a completeness of loathing such as I
+      had never experienced before for any fellow-creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of beholding in her one whom I had dragged with me into my pit of
+      sin and whom it was incumbent upon my manhood thenceforth to shelter and
+      protect from the consequences of my own iniquity, I attributed to her the
+      blame of all that had befallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day I know that in so doing I did no more than justice. But it was not
+      justly done. I had then no such knowledge as I have to-day by which to
+      correct my judgment. The worst I had the right to think of her in that
+      hour was that her guilt was something less than mine. In thinking
+      otherwise was it that I took that last step to the very bottom of the hell
+      that I had myself created for myself that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest was as nothing by comparison. I have said that it was not by act
+      or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it was by
+      both. First, in that fiercely echoed &ldquo;We?&rdquo; that I hurled at her to strike
+      her from me; then in my precipitate flight alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How I stumbled from that room I scarcely know. The events of the time that
+      followed immediately upon Fifanti's death are all blurred as the
+      impressions of a sick man's dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dimly remember that as she backed away from me until her shoulders
+      touched the wall, that as she stood so, all white and lovely as any snare
+      that Satan ever devised for man's ruin, staring at me with mutely pleading
+      eyes, I staggered forward, avoiding the sight of that dreadful huddle on
+      the floor, over which Busio was weeping foolishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I stepped a sudden moisture struck my stockinged feet. Its nature I
+      knew by instinct upon the instant, and filled by it with a sudden
+      unreasoning terror, I dashed with a loud cry from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the passage and down the dark stairs I plunged until I reached the
+      door of the house. It stood open and I went heedlessly forth. From
+      overhead I heard Giuliana calling me in a voice that held a note of
+      despair. But I never checked in my headlong career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifanti's mule, I have since reflected, was tethered near the steps. I saw
+      the beast, but it conveyed no meaning to my mind, which I think was
+      numbed. I sped past it and on, through the gate, round the road by the Po,
+      under the walls of the city, and so away into the open country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without cap, without doublet, without shoes, just in my trunks and shirt
+      and hose, as I was, I ran, heading by instinct for home as heads the
+      animal that has been overtaken by danger whilst abroad. Never since
+      Phidippides, the Athenian courier, do I believe that any man had run as
+      desperately and doggedly as I ran that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By dawn, having in some three hours put twenty miles or so between myself
+      and Piacenza, I staggered exhausted and with cut and bleeding feet through
+      the open door of a peasant's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family, sat at breakfast in the stone-flagged room into which I
+      stumbled. I halted under their astonished eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the Lord of Mondolfo,&rdquo; I panted hoarsely, &ldquo;and I need a beast to
+      carry me home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The head of that considerable family, a grizzled, suntanned peasant, rose
+      from his seat and pondered my condition with a glance that was laden with
+      mistrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord of Mondolfo&mdash;you, thus?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Now, by Bacchus, I am
+      the Pope of Rome!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his wife, more tender-hearted, saw in my disorder cause for pity
+      rather than irony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor lad!&rdquo; she murmured, as I staggered and fell into a chair, unable
+      longer to retain my feet. She rose immediately, and came hurrying towards
+      me with a basin of goat's milk. The draught refreshed my body as her
+      gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul. Seated there, her stout
+      arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherly breast,
+      I was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state by the sweet
+      touch of sympathy, for which may God reward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rested in that place awhile. Three hours I slept upon a litter of straw
+      in an outhouse; whereupon, strengthened by my repose, I renewed my claim
+      to be the Lord of Mondolfo and my demand for a horse to carry me to my
+      fortress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still doubting me too much to trust me alone with any beast of his, the
+      peasant nevertheless fetched out a couple of mules and set out with me for
+      Mondolfo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK III. THE WILDERNESS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THE HOME-COMING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was still early morning when we came into the town of Mondolfo, my
+      peasant escort and I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day being Sunday there was little stir in the town at such an hour,
+      and it presented a very different appearance from that which it had worn
+      when last I had seen it. But the difference lay not only in the absence of
+      bustle and the few folk abroad now as compared with that market-day on
+      which, departing, I had ridden through it. I viewed the place to-day with
+      eyes that were able to draw comparisons, and after the wide streets and
+      imposing buildings of Piacenza, I found my little township mean and
+      rustic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed the Duomo, consecrated to Our Lady of Mondolfo. Its portals
+      stood wide, and in the opening swung a heavy crimson curtain, embroidered
+      with a huge golden cross which was bellying outward like an enormous
+      gonfalon. On the steps a few crippled beggars whined, and a few faithful
+      took their way to early Mass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On, up the steep, ill-paved street we climbed to the mighty grey citadel
+      looming on the hill's crest, like a gigantic guardian brooding over the
+      city of his trust. We crossed the drawbridge unchallenged, passed under
+      the tunnel of the gateway, and so came into the vast, untenanted bailey of
+      the fortress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about me, beat my hands together, and raised my voice to shout
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ola! Ola!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to my call the door of the guardhouse opened presently, and a
+      man looked out. He frowned at first; then his brows went up and his mouth
+      fell open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the Madonnino!&rdquo; he shouted over his shoulder, and hurried forward
+      to take my reins, uttering words of respectful welcome, which seemed to
+      relieve the fears of my peasant, who had never quite believed me what I
+      proclaimed myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a stir in the guardhouse, and two or three men of the absurd
+      garrison my mother kept there shuffled in the doorway, whilst a burly
+      fellow in leather with a sword girt on him thrust his way through and
+      hurried forward, limping slightly. In the dark, lowering face I recognized
+      my old friend Rinolfo, and I marvelled to see him thus accoutred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He halted before me, and gave me a stiff and unfriendly salute; then he
+      bade the man-at-arms to hold my stirrup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your authority here, Rinolfo?&rdquo; I asked him shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am the castellan,&rdquo; he informed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The castellan? But what of Messer Giorgio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He died a month ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who gave you this authority?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna the Countess, in some recompense for the hurt you did me,&rdquo; he
+      replied, thrusting forward his lame leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tone was surly and hostile; but it provoked no resentment in me now. I
+      deserved his unfriendliness. I had crippled him. At the moment I forgot
+      the provocation I had received&mdash;forgot that since he had raised his
+      hand to his lord, it would have been no great harshness to have hanged
+      him. I saw in him but another instance of my wickedness, another sufferer
+      at my hands; and I hung my head under the rebuke implicit in his surly
+      tone and glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not thought, Rinolfo, to do you an abiding hurt,&rdquo; said I, and here
+      checked, bethinking me that I lied; for had I not expressed regret that I
+      had not broken his neck?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got down slowly and painfully, for my limbs were stiff and my feet very
+      sore. He smiled darkly at my words and my sudden faltering; but I affected
+      not to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Madonna?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will have returned by now from chapel,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned to the man-at-arms. &ldquo;You will announce me,&rdquo; I bade him. &ldquo;And you,
+      Rinolfo, see to these beasts and to this good fellow here. Let him have
+      wine and food and what he needs. I will see him again ere he sets forth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rinolfo muttered that all should be done as I ordered, and I signed to the
+      man-at-arms to lead the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went up the steps and into the cool of the great hall. There the
+      soldier, whose every feeling had been outraged no doubt by Rinolfo's
+      attitude towards his lord, ventured to express his sympathy and
+      indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rinolfo is a black beast, Madonnino,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all black beasts, Eugenio,&rdquo; I answered heavily, and so startled
+      him by words and tone that he ventured upon no further speech, but led me
+      straight to my mother's private dining-room, opened the door and calmly
+      announced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna, here is my Lord Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard the gasp she uttered before I caught sight of her. She was seated
+      at the table's head in her great wooden chair, and Fra Gervasio was pacing
+      the rush-strewn floor in talk with her, his hands behind his back, his
+      head thrust forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the announcement he straightened suddenly and wheeled round to face me,
+      inquiry in his glance. My mother, too, half rose, and remained so, staring
+      at me, her amazement at seeing me increased by the strange appearance I
+      presented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenio closed the door and departed, leaving me standing there, just
+      within it; and for a moment no word was spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cheerless, familiar room, looking more cheerless than it had done of
+      old, with its high-set windows and ghastly Crucifix, affected me in a
+      singular manner. In this room I had known a sort of peace&mdash;the peace
+      that is peculiarly childhood's own, whatever the troubles that may haunt
+      it. I came into it now with hell in my soul, sin-blackened before God and
+      man, a fugitive in quest of sanctuary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A knot rose in my throat and paralysed awhile my speech. Then with a
+      sudden sob, I sprang forward and hobbled to her upon my wounded feet. I
+      flung myself down upon my knees, buried my head in her lap, and all that I
+      could cry was:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother! Mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether perceiving my disorder, my distraught and suffering condition,
+      what remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry acting
+      like a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of piety had
+      long since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs that had long
+      since been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond between us, her tone
+      was more kindly and gentle than I had ever known it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino, my child! Why are you here?&rdquo; And her wax-like fingers very
+      gently touched my head. &ldquo;Why are you here&mdash;and thus? What has
+      happened to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me miserable!&rdquo; I groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, I am a sinner,&rdquo; I faltered miserably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and
+      contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some
+      shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his
+      voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sinners are we all, Agostino. But repentance purges sin. Do not abandon
+      yourself to despair, my son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it? Wretched boy, what have you done?&rdquo; And the cold repugnance in
+      her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God help me! God help me!&rdquo; I groaned miserably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that
+      was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Agostino,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;would you find it easier to tell me first?
+      Will you confess to me, my son? Will you let me lift this burden from your
+      soul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face. I
+      caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away. &ldquo;If there
+      were more priests like you,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;there would be fewer sinners like
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a
+      gleam of pale sunshine from an over-clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle,
+      soothing words of the Divine Mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I staggered to my bruised feet. &ldquo;I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio,&rdquo; I
+      said, &ldquo;and afterwards we will tell my mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as she would make demur. But Fra Gervasio checked any such
+      intent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is best so, Madonna,&rdquo; he said gravely. &ldquo;His most urgent need is the
+      consolation that the Church alone can give.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth. We went to his modest
+      chamber, with its waxed floor, the hard, narrow pallet upon which he
+      slept, the blue and gold image of the Virgin, and the little
+      writing-pulpit upon which lay open a manuscript he was illuminating, for
+      he was very skilled in that art which already was falling into desuetude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this pulpit, by the window, he took his seat, and signed to me to
+      kneel. I recited the Confiteor. Thereafter, with my face buried in my
+      hands, my soul writhing in an agony of penitence and shame, I poured out
+      the hideous tale of the evil I had wrought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rarely did he speak while I was at that recitation. Save when I halted or
+      hesitated he would interject a word of pity and of comfort that fell like
+      a blessed balsam upon my spiritual wounds and gave me strength to pursue
+      my awful story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had done and he knew me to the full for the murderer and adulterer
+      that I was, there fell a long pause, during which I waited as a felon
+      awaits sentence. But it did not come. Instead, he set himself to examine
+      more closely the thing I had told him. He probed it with a question here
+      and a question there, and all of a shrewdness that revealed the extent of
+      his knowledge of humanity, and the infinite compassion and gentleness that
+      must be the inevitable fruits of such sad knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He caused me to go back to the very day of my arrival at Fifanti's; and
+      thence, step by step, he led me again over the road that in the past four
+      months I had trodden, until he had traced the evil to its very source, and
+      could see the tiny spring that had formed the brook which, gathering
+      volume as it went, had swollen at last into a raging torrent that had laid
+      waste its narrow confines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who that knows all that goes to the making of a sin shall dare to condemn
+      a sinner?&rdquo; he cried at last, so that I looked up at him, startled, and
+      penetrated by a ray of hope and comfort. He returned my glance with one of
+      infinite pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the woman here upon whom must fall the greater blame,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at that I cried out in hot remonstrance, adding that I had yet another
+      vileness to confess&mdash;for it was now that for the first time I
+      realized it. And I related to him how last night I had repudiated her,
+      cast her off and fled, leaving her to bear the punishment alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of my conduct in that he withheld his criticism. &ldquo;The sin is hers,&rdquo; he
+      repeated. &ldquo;She was a wife, and the adultery is hers. More, she was the
+      seducer. It was she who debauched your mind with lascivious readings, and
+      tore away the foundations of virtue from your soul. If in the cataclysm
+      that followed she was crushed and smothered, it is no more than she had
+      incurred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I still protested that this view was all too lenient to me, that it sprang
+      of his love for me, that it was not just. Thereupon he began to make clear
+      to me many things that may have been clear to you worldly ones who have
+      read my scrupulous and exact confessions, but which at the time were still
+      all wrapped in obscurity for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as if he held up a mirror&mdash;an intelligent and informing mirror&mdash;in
+      which my deeds were reflected by the light of his own deep knowledge. He
+      showed me the gradual seduction to which I had been subjected; he showed
+      me Giuliana as she really was, as she must be from what I had told him; he
+      reminded me that she was older by ten years than I, and greatly skilled in
+      men and worldliness; that where I had gone blindly, never seeing what was
+      the inevitable goal and end of the road I trod, she had consciously been
+      leading me thither, knowing full well what the end must be, and desiring
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been done
+      in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the poor
+      man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame. Largely
+      had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his heart. A
+      good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which he knew to
+      be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him to trap and
+      slay his enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the greatest blame of all he attached to that Messer Arcolano who had
+      recommended Fifanti to my mother as a tutor for me, knowing full well&mdash;as
+      he must have known&mdash;what manner of house the doctor kept and what
+      manner of wanton was Giuliana. Arcolano had sought to serve Fifanti's
+      interests in pretending to serve mine and my mother's; and my mother
+      should be enlightened that at last she might know that evil man for what
+      he really was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all this,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;does not mean, Agostino, that you are to
+      regard yourself as other than a great sinner. You have sinned monstrously,
+      even when all these extenuations are considered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, I know!&rdquo; I groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But beyond forgiveness no man has ever sinned, nor have you now. So that
+      your repentance is deep and real, and when by some penance that I shall
+      impose you shall have cleansed yourself of all this mire that clings to
+      your poor soul, you shall have absolution from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impose your penance,&rdquo; I cried eagerly. &ldquo;There is none I will not
+      undertake, to purchase pardon and some little peace of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will consider it,&rdquo; he answered gravely. &ldquo;And now let us seek your
+      mother. She must be told, for a great deal hangs upon this, Agostino. The
+      career to which you were destined is no longer for you, my son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My spirit quailed under those last words; and yet I felt an immense relief
+      at the same time, as if some overwhelming burden had been lifted from me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am indeed unworthy,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not your unworthiness that I am considering, my son, but your
+      nature. The world calls you over-strongly. It is not for nothing that you
+      are the child of Giovanni d'Anguissola. His blood runs thick in your
+      veins, and it is very human blood. For such as you there is no hope in the
+      cloister. Your mother must be made to realize it, and she must abandon her
+      dreams concerning you. It will wound her very sorely. But better that
+      than...&rdquo; He shrugged and rose. &ldquo;Come, Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I rose, too, immensely comforted and soothed already, for all that I
+      was yet very far from ease or peace of mind. Outside his room he set a
+      hand upon my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we have ministered in some degree to your poor spirit.
+      Let us take thought for the body, too. You need garments and other things.
+      Come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led me up to my own little chamber, took fresh raiment for me from a
+      press, called Lorenza and bade her bring bread and wine, vinegar and warm
+      water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a very weak dilution of the latter he bade me bathe my lacerated feet,
+      and then he found fine strips of linen in which to bind them ere I drew
+      fresh hose and shoes. And meanwhile munching my bread and salt and taking
+      great draughts of the pure if somewhat sour wine, my mental peace was
+      increased by the refreshment of my body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I stood up more myself than I had been in these last twelve awful
+      hours&mdash;for it was just noon, and into twelve hours had been packed
+      the events that well might have filled a lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He put an arm about my shoulder, fondly as a father might have done, and
+      so led me below again and into my mother's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found her kneeling before the Crucifix, telling her beads; and we stood
+      waiting a few moments in silence until with a sigh and a rustle of her
+      stiff black dress she rose gently and turned to face us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My heart thudded violently in that moment, as I looked into that pale face
+      of sorrow. Then Fra Gervasio began to speak very gently and softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your son, Madonna, has been lured into sin by a wanton woman,&rdquo; he began,
+      and there she interrupted him with a sudden and very piteous cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that! Ah, not that!&rdquo; she exclaimed, putting out hands gropingly
+      before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That and more, Madonna,&rdquo; he answered gravely. &ldquo;Be brave to hear the rest.
+      It is a very piteous story. But the founts of Divine Mercy are
+      inexhaustible, and Agostino shall drink therefrom when by penitence he
+      shall have cleansed his lips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Very erect she stood there, silent and ghostly, her face looking
+      diaphanous by contrast with the black draperies that enshrouded her,
+      whilst her eyes were great pools of sorrow. Poor, poor mother! It is the
+      last recollection I have of her; for after that day we never met again,
+      and I would give ten years to purgatory if I might recall the last words
+      that passed between us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As briefly as possible and ever thrusting into the foreground the
+      immensity of the snare that had been spread for me and the temptation that
+      had enmeshed me, Gervasio told her the story of my sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She heard him through in that immovable attitude, one hand pressed to her
+      heart, her poor pale lips moving now and again, but no sound coming from
+      them, her face a white mask of pain and horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done, so wrought upon was I by the sorrow of that countenance
+      that I went forward again to fling myself upon my knees before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, forgive!&rdquo; I pleaded. And getting no answer I put up my hands to
+      take hers. &ldquo;Mother!&rdquo; I cried, and the tears were streaming down my face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she recoiled before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you my child?&rdquo; she asked in a voice of horror. &ldquo;Are you the thing
+      that has grown out of that little child I vowed to chastity and to God?
+      Then has my sin overtaken me&mdash;the sin of bearing a son to Giovanni
+      d'Anguissola, that enemy of God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mother, mother!&rdquo; I cried again, thinking perhaps by that all-powerful
+      word to move her yet to pity and to gentleness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna,&rdquo; cried Gervasio, &ldquo;be merciful if you would look for mercy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has falsified my vows,&rdquo; she answered stonily. &ldquo;He was my votive
+      offering for the life of his impious father. I am punished for the
+      unworthiness of my offering and the unworthiness of the cause in which I
+      offered it. Accursed is the fruit of my womb!&rdquo; She moaned, and sank her
+      head upon her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will atone!&rdquo; I cried, overwhelmed to see her so distraught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wrung her pale hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atone!&rdquo; she cried, and her voice trembled. &ldquo;Go then, and atone. But never
+      let me see you more; never let me be reminded of the sinner to whom I have
+      given life. Go! Begone!&rdquo; And she raised a hand in tragical dismissal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrank back, and came slowly to my feet. And then Gervasio spoke, and
+      his voice boomed and thundered with righteous indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna, this is inhuman!&rdquo; he denounced. &ldquo;Shall you dare to hope for
+      mercy being yourself unmerciful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall pray for strength to forgive him; but the sight of him might
+      tempt me back with the memory of the thing that he has done,&rdquo; she
+      answered, and she had returned to that cold and terrible reserve of hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then things that Fra Gervasio had repressed for years welled up in a
+      mighty flood. &ldquo;He is your son, and he is as you have made him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I have made him?&rdquo; quoth she, and her glance challenged the friar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what right did you make of him a votive offering? By what right did
+      you seek to consecrate a child unborn to a claustral life without thought
+      of his character, without reck of the desires that should be his? By what
+      right did you make yourself the arbiter of the future of a man unborn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what right?&rdquo; quoth she. &ldquo;Are you a priest, and do you ask me by what
+      right I vowed him to the service of God?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is there, think you, no way of serving God but in the sterility of
+      the cloister?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;Why, since no man is born to damnation, and
+      since by your reasoning the world must mean damnation, then all men should
+      be encloistered, and soon, thus, there would be an end to man. You are too
+      arrogant, Madonna, when you presume to judge what pleases God. Beware lest
+      you fall into the sin of the Pharisee, for often have I seen you stand in
+      danger of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She swayed as if her strength were failing her, and again her pale lips
+      moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, Fra Gervasio! I will go,&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, it is not yet enough,&rdquo; he answered, and strode down the room until
+      he stood between her and me. &ldquo;He is what you have made him,&rdquo; he repeated
+      in denunciation. &ldquo;Had you studied his nature and his inclinations, had you
+      left them free to develop along the way that God intended, you would have
+      seen whether or not the cloister called him; and then would have been the
+      time to have taken a resolve. But you thought to change his nature by
+      repressing it; and you never saw that if he was not such as you would have
+      him be, then most surely would you doom him to damnation by making an evil
+      priest of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In your Pharisaic arrogance, Madonna, you sought to superimpose your will
+      to God's will concerning him&mdash;you confounded God's will with your
+      own. And so his sins recoil upon you as much as upon any. Therefore,
+      Madonna, do I bid you beware. Take a humbler view if you would be
+      acceptable in the Divine sight. Learn to forgive, for I say to you to-day
+      that you stand as greatly in need of forgiveness for the thing that
+      Agostino has done, as does Agostino himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused at last, and stood trembling before her, his eyes aflame, his
+      high cheek-bones faintly tinted. And she measured him very calmly and
+      coldly with her sombre eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a priest?&rdquo; she asked with steady scorn. &ldquo;Are you indeed a
+      priest?&rdquo; And then her invective was loosened, and her voice shrilled and
+      mounted as her anger swayed her. &ldquo;What a snake have I harboured here!&rdquo; she
+      cried. &ldquo;Blasphemer! You show me clearly whence came the impiety and
+      ungodliness of Giovanni d'Anguissola. It had the same source as your own.
+      It was suckled at your mother's breast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sob shook him. &ldquo;My mother is dead, Madonna!&rdquo; he rebuked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what a
+      power for sin she has brought forth. Go, pitiful friar. Go, both of you.
+      You are very choicely mated. Begone from Mondolfo, and never let me see
+      either of you more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She staggered to her great chair and sank into it, whilst we stood there,
+      mute, regarding her. For myself, it was with difficulty that I repressed
+      the burning things that rose to my lips. Had I given free rein to my
+      tongue, I had made of it a whip of scorpions. And my anger sprang not from
+      the things she said to me, but from what she said to that saintly man who
+      held out a hand to help me out of the morass of sin in which I was being
+      sunk. That he, that sweet and charitable follower of his Master, should be
+      abused by her, should be dubbed blasphemer and have the cherished memory
+      of his mother defiled by her pietistic utterances, was something that
+      inflamed me horribly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he set a hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Agostino,&rdquo; he said very gently. He was calm once more. &ldquo;We will go,
+      as we are bidden, you and I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, out of the sweetness of his nature, he forged all unwittingly
+      the very iron that should penetrate most surely into her soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive her, my son. Forgive her as you need forgiveness. She does not
+      understand the thing she does. Come, we will pray for her, that God in His
+      infinite mercy may teach her humility and true knowledge of Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw her start as if she had been stung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blasphemer, begone!&rdquo; she cried again; and her voice was hoarse with
+      suppressed anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the door was suddenly flung open, and Rinolfo clanked in, very
+      martial and important, his hand thrusting up his sword behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;the Captain of Justice from Piacenza is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence after Rinolfo had flung that announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Captain of Justice?&rdquo; quoth my mother at length, her voice startled.
+      &ldquo;What does he seek?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The person of my Lord Agostino d'Anguissola,&rdquo; said Rinolfo steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed very heavily. &ldquo;A felon's end!&rdquo; she murmured, and turned to me.
+      &ldquo;If thus you may expiate your sins,&rdquo; she said, speaking more gently, &ldquo;let
+      the will of Heaven be done. Admit the captain, Ser Rinolfo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed, and turned sharply to depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; I cried, and rooted him there by the imperative note of my
+      command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Gervasio was more than right when he said that mine was not a nature
+      for the cloister. In that moment I might have realized it to the full by
+      the readiness with which the thought of battle occurred to me, and more by
+      the anticipatory glow that warmed me at the very thought of it. I was the
+      very son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What force attends the captain?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has six mounted men with him,&rdquo; replied Rinolfo. &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; I
+      answered, &ldquo;you will bid him begone in my name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he should not go?&rdquo; was Rinolfo's impudent question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will tell him that I will drive him hence&mdash;him and his braves.
+      We keep a garrison of a score of men at least&mdash;sufficient to compel
+      him to depart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will return again with more,&rdquo; said Rinolfo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does that concern you?&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;Let him return with what he pleases.
+      To-day I enrol more forces from the countryside, take up the bridge and
+      mount our cannon. This is my lair and fortress, and I'll defend it and
+      myself as becomes my name and blood. For I am the lord and master here,
+      and the Lord of Mondolfo is not to be dragged away thus at the heels of a
+      Captain of Justice. You have my orders, obey them. About it, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Circumstances had shown me the way that I must take, and the folly of
+      going forth a fugitive outcast at my mother's bidding. I was Lord of
+      Mondolfo, as I had said, and they should know and feel it from this hour&mdash;all
+      of them, not excepting my mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I reckoned without the hatred Rinolfo bore me. Instead of the prompt
+      obedience that I had looked for, he had turned again to my mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it your wish, Madonna?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my wish that counts, you knave,&rdquo; I thundered and advanced upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he fronted me intrepidly. &ldquo;I hold my office from my Lady the Countess.
+      I obey none other here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Body of God! Do you defy me?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Am I Lord of Mondolfo, or am I a
+      lackey in my own house? You'ld best obey me ere I break you, Ser Rinolfo.
+      We shall see whether the men will take my orders,&rdquo; I added confidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faintest smile illumined his dark face. &ldquo;The men will not stir a
+      finger at the bidding of any but Madonna the Countess and myself,&rdquo; he
+      answered hardily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by an effort that I refrained from striking him. And then my mother
+      spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is as Ser Rinolfo says,&rdquo; she informed me. &ldquo;So cease this futile
+      resistance, sir son, and accept the expiation that is offered you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her, she avoiding my glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna, I cannot think that it is so,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;These men have known me
+      since I was a little lad. Many of them have followed the fortunes of my
+      father. They'll never turn their backs upon his son in the hour of his
+      need. They are not all so inhuman as my mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake, sir,&rdquo; said Rinolfo. &ldquo;Of the men you knew but one or two
+      remain. Most of our present force has been enrolled by me in the past
+      month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was defeat, utter and pitiful. His tone was too confident, he was too
+      sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if I made
+      appeal to his knavish followers. My arms fell to my sides, and I looked at
+      Gervasio. His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of sorrow as
+      they rested on me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true, Agostino,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he spoke, Rinolfo limped out of the room to fetch the Captain of
+      Justice, as my mother had bidden him; and his lips smiled cruelly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam mother,&rdquo; I said bitterly, &ldquo;you do a monstrous thing. You usurp the
+      power that is mine, and you deliver me&mdash;me, your son&mdash;to the
+      gallows. I hope that, hereafter, when you come to realize to the full your
+      deed, you will be able to give your conscience peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My first duty is to God,&rdquo; she answered; and to that pitiable answer there
+      was nothing to be rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I turned my shoulder to her and stood waiting, Fra Gervasio beside me,
+      clenching his hands in his impotence and mute despair. And then an
+      approaching clank of mail heralded the coming of the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rinolfo held the door, and Cosimo d'Anguissola entered with a firm, proud
+      tread, two of his men, following at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wore a buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of mail;
+      his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear was a
+      steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet. Thigh-boots encased his
+      legs; sword and dagger hung in the silver carriages at his belt; his
+      handsome, aquiline face was very solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed profoundly to my mother, who rose to respond, and then he flashed
+      me one swift glance of his piercing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I deplore my business here,&rdquo; he announced shortly. &ldquo;No doubt it will be
+      known to you already.&rdquo; And he looked at me again, allowing his eyes to
+      linger on my face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ready, sir,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we had best be going, for I understand that none could be less
+      welcome here than I. Yet in this, Madonna, let me assure you that there is
+      nothing personal to myself. I am the slave of my office. I do but perform
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much protesting where no doubt has been expressed,&rdquo; said Fra Gervasio,
+      &ldquo;in itself casts a doubt upon your good faith. Are you not Cosimo
+      d'Anguissola&mdash;my lord's cousin and heir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;yet that has no part in this, sir friar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let it have part. Let it have the part it should have. Will you bear
+      one of your own name and blood to the gallows? What will men say of that
+      when they perceive your profit in the deed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo looked him boldly between the eyes, his hawk-face very white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir priest, I know not by what right you address me so. But you do me
+      wrong. I am the Podesta of Piacenza bound by an oath that it would
+      dishonour me to break; and break it I must or else fulfil my duty here.
+      Enough!&rdquo; he added, in his haughty, peremptory fashion. &ldquo;Ser Agostino, I
+      await your pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will appeal to Rome,&rdquo; cried Fra Gervasio, now beside himself with
+      grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo smiled darkly, pityingly. &ldquo;It is to be feared that Rome will turn a
+      deaf ear to appeals on behalf of the son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that he motioned me to precede him. Silently I pressed Fra
+      Gervasio's hand, and on that departed without so much as another look at
+      my mother, who sat there a silent witness of a scene which she approved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men-at-arms fell into step, one on either side of me, and so we passed
+      out into the courtyard, where Cosimo's other men were waiting, and where
+      was gathered the entire family of the castle&mdash;a gaping, rather
+      frightened little crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They brought forth a mule for me, and I mounted. Then suddenly there was
+      Fra Gervasio at my side again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, too, am going hence,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Be of good courage, Agostino. There is
+      no effort I will not make on your behalf.&rdquo; In a broken voice he added his
+      farewells ere he stood back at the captain's peremptory bidding. The
+      little troop closed round me, and thus, within a couple of hours of my
+      coming, I departed again from Mondolfo, surrendered to the hangman by the
+      pious hands of my mother, who on her knees, no doubt, would be thanking
+      God for having afforded her the grace to act in so righteous a manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once only did my cousin address me, and that was soon after we had left
+      the town behind us. He motioned the men away, and rode to my side. Then he
+      looked at me with mocking, hating eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had done better to have continued in your saint's trade than have
+      become so very magnificent a sinner,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer him, and he rode on beside me in silence some little way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; he sighed at last. &ldquo;Your course has been a brief one, but very
+      eventful. And who would have suspected so very fierce a wolf under so
+      sheepish an outside? Body of God! You fooled us all, you and that
+      white-faced trull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said it through his teeth with such a concentration of rage in his
+      tones that it was easy to guess where the sore rankled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him gravely. &ldquo;Does it become you, sir, do you think, to gird
+      at one who is your prisoner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?&rdquo; he flashed back
+      fiercely. &ldquo;Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool
+      Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have been
+      the only one excluded from her favours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie, you dog!&rdquo; I blazed at him, so fiercely that the men turned in
+      their saddles. He paled, and half raised the gauntleted hand in which he
+      carried his whip. But he controlled himself, and barked an order to his
+      followers:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ride on, there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had drawn off a little, and we were alone again, &ldquo;I do not lie,
+      sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is a practice which I leave to shavelings of all
+      degrees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you say that she took aught from you, then you lie,&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered me steadily. &ldquo;Fool!&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Whence else came her
+      jewels and fine clothes? From Fifanti, do you think&mdash;that impecunious
+      pedant? Or perhaps you imagine that it was from Gambara? In time that
+      grasping prelate might have made the Duke pay. But pay, himself? By the
+      Blood of God! he was never known to pay for anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or, yet again, do you suppose her finery was afforded her by Caro?&mdash;Messer
+      Annibale Caro&mdash;who is so much in debt that he is never like to return
+      to Piacenza, unless some dolt of a patron rewards him for his poetaster's
+      labours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, my shaveling. It was I who paid&mdash;I who was the fool. God! I
+      more than suspected the others. But you. You saint... You!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung up his head, and laughed bitterly and unpleasantly. &ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo;
+       he ended, &ldquo;You are to pay, though in different kind. It is in the family,
+      you see.&rdquo; And abruptly raising his voice he shouted to the men to wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter he rode ahead, alone and gloomy, whilst no less alone and
+      gloomy rode I amid my guards. The thing he had revealed to me had torn
+      away a veil from my silly eyes. It had made me understand a hundred little
+      matters that hitherto had been puzzling me. And I saw how utterly and
+      fatuously blind I had been to things which even Fra Gervasio had
+      apprehended from just the relation he had drawn from me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as we were entering Piacenza by the Gate of San Lazzaro that I
+      again drew my cousin to my side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Captain!&rdquo; I called to him, for I could not bring myself to address
+      him as cousin now. He came, inquiry in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me a moment, as if my effrontery astonished him. Then he
+      shrugged and sneered. &ldquo;I would I knew for certain,&rdquo; was his fierce answer.
+      &ldquo;I would I knew. Then should I have the pair of you.&rdquo; And I saw it in his
+      face how unforgivingly he hated me out of his savage jealousy. &ldquo;My Lord
+      Gambara might tell you. I scarcely doubt it. Were I but certain, what a
+      reckoning should I not present! He may be Governor of Piacenza, but were
+      he Governor of Hell he should not escape me.&rdquo; And with that he rode ahead
+      again, and left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rumour of our coming sped through the streets ahead of us, and out of
+      the houses poured the townsfolk to watch our passage and to point me out
+      one to another with many whisperings and solemn head-waggings. And the
+      farther we advanced, the greater was the concourse, until by the time we
+      reached the square before the Communal Palace we found there what amounted
+      to a mob awaiting us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My guards closed round me as if to protect me from that crowd. But I was
+      strangely without fear, and presently I was to see how little cause there
+      was for any, and to realize that the action of my guards was sprung from a
+      very different motive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people stood silent, and on every upturned face of which I caught a
+      glimpse I saw something that was akin to pity. Presently, however, as we
+      drew nearer to the Palace, a murmur began to rise. It swelled and grew
+      fierce. Suddenly a cry rose vehement and clear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rescue! Rescue!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the Lord of Mondolfo,&rdquo; shouted one tall fellow, &ldquo;and the
+      Cardinal-legate makes a cat's-paw of him! He is to suffer for Messer
+      Gambara's villainy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he was answered by the cry&mdash;&ldquo;Rescue! Rescue!&rdquo; whilst some added
+      an angry&mdash;&ldquo;Death to the Legate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst I was deeply marvelling at all this, Cosimo looked at me over his
+      shoulder, and though his lips were steady, his eyes seemed to smile,
+      charged with a message of derision&mdash;and something more, something
+      that I could not read. Then I heard his hard, metallic voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back there, you curs! To your kennels! Out of the way, or we ride you
+      down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had drawn his sword, and his white hawk-face was so cruel and
+      determined that they fell away before him and their cries died down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed into the courtyard of the Communal Palace, and the great studded
+      gates were slammed in the faces of the mob, and barred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got down from my mule, and was conducted at Cosimo's bidding to one of
+      the dungeons under the Palace, where I was left with the announcement that
+      I must present myself to-morrow before the Tribunal of the Ruota.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I flung myself down upon the dried rushes that had been heaped in a corner
+      to do duty for a bed, and I abandoned myself to my bitter thoughts. In
+      particular I pondered the meaning of the crowd's strange attitude. Nor was
+      it a riddle difficult to resolve. It was evident that believing Gambara,
+      as they did, to be Giuliana's lover, and informed perhaps&mdash;invention
+      swelling rumour as it will&mdash;that the Cardinal-legate had ridden late
+      last night to Fifanti's house, it had been put about that the foul murder
+      done there was Messer Gambara's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus was the Legate reaping the harvest of all the hatred he had sown, of
+      all the tyranny and extortion of his iron rule in Piacenza. And willing to
+      believe any evil of the man they hated, they not only laid Fifanti's death
+      at his door, but they went to further lengths and accounted that I was the
+      cat's-paw; that I was to be sacrificed to save the Legate's face and
+      reputation. They remembered perhaps the ill-odour in which we Anguissola
+      of Mondolfo had been at Rome, for the ghibelline leanings that ever had
+      been ours and for the rebellion of my father against the Pontifical sway;
+      and their conclusions gathered a sort of confirmation from that
+      circumstance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long upon the very edge of mutiny and revolt against Gambara's injustice,
+      it had needed but what seemed a crowning one such as this to quicken their
+      hatred into expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all very clear and obvious, and it seemed to me that to-morrow's
+      trial should be very interesting. I had but to deny; I had but to make
+      myself the mouthpiece of the rumour that was abroad, and Heaven alone
+      could foretell what the consequences might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I smiled bitterly to myself. Deny? O, no! That was a last vileness I
+      could not perpetrate. The Ruota should hear the truth, and Gambara should
+      be left to shelter Giuliana, who&mdash;Cosimo was assured&mdash;had fled
+      to him in her need as to a natural protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a bitter thought. The intensity of that bitterness made me realize
+      with alarm how it still was with me. And pondering this, I fell asleep,
+      utterly worn out in body and in mind by the awful turmoil of that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I awakened to find a man standing beside me. He was muffled in a black
+      cloak and carried a lanthorn. Behind him the door gaped as he had left it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly I sat up, conscious of my circumstance and surroundings, and at
+      my movement this visitor spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sleep very soundly for a man in your case.&rdquo; said he, and the voice
+      was that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He set down the lanthorn on a stool, whence it shed a wheel of yellow
+      light intersected with black beams. His cloak fell apart, and I saw that
+      he was dressed for riding, very plainly, in sombre garments, and that he
+      was armed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood slightly to one side that the light might fall upon my face,
+      leaving his own in shadow; thus he considered me for some moments in
+      silence. At last, very slowly, very bitterly, shaking his head as he
+      spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You fool, you clumsy fool!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having drawn, as you have seen, my own conclusions from the attitude of
+      the mob, I was in little doubt as to the precise bearing of his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him sincerely. &ldquo;If folly were all my guilt,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it would
+      be well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sniffed impatiently. &ldquo;Still sanctimonious!&rdquo; he sneered. &ldquo;Tcha! Up now,
+      and play the man, at least. You have shed your robe of sanctity, Messer
+      Agostino; have done with pretence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not pretend,&rdquo; I answered him. &ldquo;And as for playing the man, I shall
+      accept what punishment the law may have for me with fortitude at least. If
+      I can but expiate...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Expiate a fig!&rdquo; he snapped, interrupting me. &ldquo;Why do you suppose that I
+      am here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wait to learn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am here because through your folly you have undone us all. What need,&rdquo;
+       he cried, the anger of expostulation quivering in his voice, &ldquo;what need
+      was there to kill that oaf Fifanti?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have killed me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I slew him in self-defence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! And do you hope to save your neck with such a plea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay. I have no thought of urging it. I but tell it you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not the need to tell me anything,&rdquo; he answered, his anger very
+      plain. &ldquo;I am very well informed of all. Rather, let me tell you something.
+      Do you realize, sir, that you have made it impossible for me to abide
+      another day in Piacenza?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry...&rdquo; I began lamely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Present your regrets to Satan,&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;Me they avail nothing. I am
+      put to the necessity of abandoning my governorship and fleeing by night
+      like a hunted thief. And I have you to thank for it. You see me on the
+      point of departure. My horses wait above. So you may add my ruin to the
+      other fine things you accomplished yesternight. For a saint you are
+      over-busy, sir.&rdquo; And he turned away and strode the length of my cell and
+      back, so that, at last, I had a glimpse of his face, which was drawn and
+      scowling. Gone now was the last vestige of his habitual silkiness; the
+      pomander-ball hung neglected, and his delicate fingers tugged viciously at
+      his little pointed beard, his great sapphire ring flashing sombrely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you, Ser Agostino, I could kill you and take joy in it. I could, by
+      God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes upon me, he drew from his breast a folded paper. &ldquo;Instead, I
+      bring you liberty. I open your doors for you, and bid you escape. Here,
+      man, take this paper. Present it to the officer at the Fodesta Gate. He
+      will let you pass. And then away with you, out of the territory of
+      Piacenza.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant my heart-beats seemed suspended by astonishment. I swung my
+      legs round, and half rose, excitedly. Then I sank back again. My mind was
+      made up. I was tired of the world; sick of life the first draught of which
+      had turned so bitter in my throat. If by my death I might expiate my sins
+      and win pardon by my submission and humility, it was all I could desire. I
+      should be glad to be released from all the misery and sorrow into which I
+      had been born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him so in some few words. &ldquo;You mean me well, my lord,&rdquo; I ended,
+      &ldquo;and I thank you. But...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God and the Saints!&rdquo; he blazed, &ldquo;I do not mean you well at all. I mean
+      you anything but well. Have I not said that I could kill you with
+      satisfaction? Whatever be the sins of Egidio Gambara, he is no hypocrite,
+      and he lets his enemies see his face unmasked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, then,&rdquo; I cried, amazed, &ldquo;why do you offer me my freedom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because this cursed populace is in such a temper that if you are brought
+      to trial I know not what may happen. As likely as not we shall have an
+      insurrection, open revolt against the Pontifical authority, and red war in
+      the streets. And this is not the time for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Holy Father requires the submission of these people. We are upon the
+      eve of Duke Pier Luigi's coming to occupy his new States, and it imports
+      that he should be well received, that he should be given a loving welcome
+      by his subjects. If, instead, they meet him with revolt and defiance, the
+      reasons will be sought, and the blame of the affair will recoil upon me.
+      Your cousin Cosimo will see to that. He is a very subtle gentleman, this
+      cousin of yours, and he has a way of working to his own profit. So now you
+      understand. I have no mind to be crushed in this business. Enough have I
+      suffered already through you, enough am I suffering in resigning my
+      governorship. So there is but one way out. There must be no trial
+      to-morrow. It must be known that you have escaped. Thus they will be
+      quieted, and the matter will blow over. So now, Ser Agostino, we
+      understand each other. You must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And whither am I to go?&rdquo; I cried, remembering my mother and that Mondolfo&mdash;the
+      only place of safety&mdash;was closed to me by her cruelly pious hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whither?&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;What do I care? To Hell&mdash;anywhere, so that you
+      get out of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd sooner hang,&rdquo; said I quite seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'ld hang and welcome, for all the love I bear you,&rdquo; he answered, his
+      impatience growing. &ldquo;But if you hang blood will be shed, innocent lives
+      will be lost, and I myself may come to suffer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For you, sir, I care nothing,&rdquo; I answered him, taking his own tone, and
+      returning him the same brutal frankness that he used with me. &ldquo;That you
+      deserve to suffer I do not doubt. But since other blood than yours might
+      be shed as you say, since innocent lives might be lost... Give me the
+      paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was frowning upon me, and smiling viperishly at the same time. &ldquo;I like
+      your frankness better than your piety,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;So now we understand
+      each other, and know that neither is in the other's debt. Hereafter beware
+      of Egidio Gambara. I give you this last loyal warning. See that you do not
+      come into my way again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose and looked at him&mdash;looked down from my greater height. I knew
+      well the source of this last, parting show of hatred. Like Cosimo's it
+      sprang from jealousy. And a growth more potential of evil does not exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bore my glance a moment, then turned and took up the lanthorn. &ldquo;Come,&rdquo;
+       he said, and obediently I followed him up the winding stone staircase, and
+      so to the very gates of the Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We met no one. What had become of the guards, I cannot think; but I am
+      satisfied that Gambara himself had removed them. He opened the wicket for
+      me, and as I stepped out he gave me the paper and whistled softly. Almost
+      at once I heard a sound of muffled hooves under the colonnade, and
+      presently loomed the figures of a man and a mule; both dim and ghostly in
+      the pearly light of dawn&mdash;for that was the hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gambara followed me out, and pulled the wicket after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That beast is for you,&rdquo; he said curtly. &ldquo;It will the better enable you to
+      get away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As curtly I acknowledged the gift, and mounted whilst the groom held the
+      stirrup for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O! it was the oddest of transactions! My Lord Gambara with death in his
+      heart very reluctantly giving me a life I did not want.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dug my heels into the mule's sides and started across the silent, empty
+      square, then plunged into a narrow street where the gloom was almost as of
+      midnight, and so pushed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came out into the open space before the Porta Fodesta, and so to the
+      gate itself. From one of the windows of the gatehouse, a light shone
+      yellow, and, presently, in answer to my call, out came an officer followed
+      by two men, one of whom carried a lanthorn swinging from his pike. He held
+      this light aloft, whilst the officer surveyed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What now?&rdquo; he challenged. &ldquo;None passes out to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For answer I thrust the paper under his nose. &ldquo;Orders from my Lord
+      Gambara,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never looked at it. &ldquo;None passes out to-night,&rdquo; he repeated
+      imperturbably. &ldquo;So run my orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Orders from whom?&rdquo; quoth I, surprised by his tone and manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the Captain of Justice, if you must know. So you may get you back
+      whence you came, and wait till daylight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but stay,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I do not think you can have heard me. I carry
+      orders from my Lord the Governor. The Captain of Justice cannot overbear
+      these.&rdquo; And I shook the paper insistently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My orders are that none is to pass&mdash;not even the Governor himself,&rdquo;
+       he answered firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very daring of Cosimo, and I saw his aim. He was, as Gambara had
+      said, a very subtle gentleman. He, too, had set his finger upon the pulse
+      of the populace, and perceived what might be expected of it. He was
+      athirst for vengeance, as he had shown me, and determined that neither I
+      nor Gambara should escape. First, I must be tried, condemned, and hanged,
+      and then he trusted, no doubt, that Gambara would be torn in pieces; and
+      it was quite possible that Messer Cosimo himself would secretly find means
+      to fan the mob's indignation against the Legate into fierce activity. And
+      it seemed that the game was in his hands, for this officer's resoluteness
+      showed how implicitly my cousin was obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of that same resoluteness of the lieutenant's I was to have a yet more
+      signal proof. For presently, whilst still I stood there vainly
+      remonstrating, down the street behind me rode Gambara himself on a tall
+      horse, followed by a mule-litter and an escort of half a score of armed
+      grooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He uttered an exclamation when he saw me still there, the gate shut and
+      the officer in talk with me. He spurred quickly forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is this?&rdquo; he demanded haughtily and angrily. &ldquo;This man rides upon the
+      business of the State. Why this delay to open for him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My orders,&rdquo; said the lieutenant, civilly but firmly, &ldquo;are that none
+      passes out to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know me?&rdquo; demanded Gambara.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you dare talk to me of your orders? There are no orders here in
+      Piacenza but my orders. Set me wide the wicket of that gate. I myself must
+      pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, I dare not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are insubordinate,&rdquo; said the Legate, of a sudden very cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no need to ask whose orders were these. At once he saw the trammel
+      spread for him. But if Messer Cosimo was subtle, so, too, was Messer
+      Gambara. By not so much as a word did he set his authority in question
+      with the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are insubordinate,&rdquo; was all he answered him, and then to the two
+      men-at-arms behind the lieutenant&mdash;&ldquo;Ho, there!&rdquo; he called. &ldquo;Bring out
+      the guard. I am Egidio Gambara, your Governor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So calm and firm and full of assurance was his tone, so unquestionable his
+      right to command them, that the men sprang instantly to obey him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you do, my lord?&rdquo; quoth the officer, and he seemed daunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Buffoon,&rdquo; said Gambara between his teeth. &ldquo;You shall see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Six men came hurrying from the gatehouse, and the Cardinal called to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let the corporal stand forth,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man advanced a pace from the rank they had hastily formed and saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Place me your officer under arrest,&rdquo; said the Legate coldly, advancing no
+      reason for the order. &ldquo;Let him be locked in the gatehouse until my return;
+      and do you, sir corporal, take command here meanwhile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The startled fellow saluted again, and advanced upon his officer. The
+      lieutenant looked up with sudden uneasiness in his eyes. He had gone too
+      far. He had not reckoned upon being dealt with in this summary fashion. He
+      had been bold so long as he conceived himself no more than Cosimo's
+      mouthpiece, obeying orders for the issuing of which Cosimo must answer.
+      Instead, it seemed, the Governor intended that he should answer for them
+      himself. Whatever he now dared, he knew&mdash;as Gambara knew&mdash;that
+      his men would never dare to disobey the Governor, who was the supreme
+      authority there under the Pope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I had my orders from the Captain of Justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And dare you to say that your orders included my messengers and my own
+      self?&rdquo; thundered the dainty prelate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explicitly, my lord,&rdquo; answered the lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall be dealt with on my return, and if what you say is proved true,
+      the Captain of Justice shall suffer with yourself for this treason&mdash;for
+      that is the offence. Take him away, and someone open me that gate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an end to disobedience, and a moment or two later we stood
+      outside the town, on the bank of the river, which gurgled and flowed away
+      smoothly and mistily in the growing light, between the rows of stalwart
+      poplars that stood like sentinels to guard it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now begone,&rdquo; said Gambara curtly to me, and wheeling my mule I rode
+      for the bridge of boats, crossed it, and set myself to breast the slopes
+      beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Midway up I checked and looked back across the wide water. The light had
+      grown quite strong by now, and in the east there was a faint pink flush to
+      herald the approaching sun. Away beyond the river, moving southward, I
+      could just make out the Legate's little cavalcade. And then, for the first
+      time, a question leapt in my mind concerning the litter whose leathern
+      curtains had remained so closely drawn. Whom did it contain? Could it be
+      Giuliana? Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she had gone to
+      Gambara for shelter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little while ago I had sighed for death and exulted in the chance of
+      expiation and of purging myself of the foulness of sin. And now, at the
+      sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate jealousy
+      touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my downfall.
+      O, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles in such
+      poor natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the desire for
+      wrong!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things; in vain
+      that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent resolves; in
+      vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the confession at Fra
+      Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance and make amends by
+      the purity of all my after-life. Vain was it all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking
+      it, I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then away
+      to the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must know. I must! It was no matter that conscience told me that here
+      was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I was
+      divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness. I must
+      know. And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer Gambara,
+      who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no difficulty in following them. A question here, and a question
+      there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
+      necessary to keep me on their track. And ever, it seemed to me from the
+      answers that I got, was I lessening the distance that separated us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was weak for want of food, for the last time that I had eaten was
+      yesterday at noon, at Mondolfo; and then but little. Yet all I had this
+      day were some bunches of grapes that I stole in passing from a vineyard
+      and ate as I trotted on along that eternal Via Aemilia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was towards noon, at last, that a taverner at Castel Guelfo informed me
+      that my party had passed through the town but half an hour ahead of me. At
+      the news I urged my already weary beast along, for unless I made good
+      haste now it might well happen that Parma should swallow up Gambara and
+      his party ere I overtook them. And then, some ten minutes later, I caught
+      a flutter of garments half a mile or so ahead of me, amid the elms. I
+      quitted the road and entered the woodland. A little way I still rode;
+      then, dismounting, I tethered my mule, and went forward cautiously on
+      foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found them in a little sunken dell by a tiny rivulet. Lying on my belly
+      in the long grass above, I looked down upon them with a black hatred of
+      jealousy in my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were reclining there, in that cool, fragrant spot in the shadow of a
+      great beech-tree. A cloth had been spread upon the ground, and upon this
+      were platters of roast meats, white bread and fruits, and a flagon of
+      wine, a second flagon standing in the brook to cool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Gambara was talking and she was regarding him with eyes that were
+      half veiled, a slow, insolent smile upon her matchless face. Presently at
+      something that he said she laughed outright, a laugh so tuneful and
+      light-hearted that I thought I must be dreaming all this. It was the gay,
+      frank, innocent laughter of a child; and I never heard in all my life a
+      sound that caused me so much horror. He leaned across to her, and stroked
+      her velvet cheek with his delicate hand, whilst she suffered it in that
+      lazy fashion that was so peculiarly her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stayed for no more. I wriggled back a little way to where a clump of
+      hazel permitted me to rise without being seen. Thence I fled the spot. And
+      as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame but
+      one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and that word
+      was &ldquo;Trull!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two nights ago had happened enough to stamp her soul for ever with sorrow
+      and despair. Yet she could sit there, laughing and feasting and trulling
+      it lightly with the Legate!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little that remained me of my illusions was shivered in that hour.
+      There was, I swore, no good in all the world; for even where goodness
+      sought to find a way, it grew distorted, as in my mother's case. And yet
+      through all her pietism surely she had been right! There was no peace, no
+      happiness save in the cloister. And at last the full bitterness of
+      penitence and regret overtook me when I reflected that by my own act I had
+      rendered myself for ever unworthy of the cloister's benign shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I went blindly through the tangle of undergrowth, stumbling at every step
+      and scarce noticing that I stumbled; and in this fashion I came presently
+      back to my mule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I mounted and rode amain, not by the way that I had come, but westward;
+      not by road, but by bridle-paths, through meadow-land and forest, up hill
+      and down, like a man entranced, not knowing whither I went nor caring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, whither was I to go? Like my father before me I was an outcast, a
+      fugitive outlaw. But this troubled me not yet. My mind, my wounded,
+      tortured mind was all upon the past. It was of Giuliana that I thought as
+      I rode in the noontide warmth of that September day. And never can human
+      brain have held a sorer conflict of reflection than was mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No shadow now remained of the humour that had possessed me in the hour in
+      which I had repudiated her after the murder of Fifanti. I had heard Fra
+      Gervasio deliver judgment upon her, and I had doubted his justice, felt
+      that he used her mercilessly. My own sight had now confirmed to me the
+      truth of what he had said; but in doing so&mdash;in allowing me to see her
+      in another man's possession&mdash;a very rage of jealousy had been stirred
+      in me and a greater rage of longing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This longing followed upon my first bitter denunciation of her; and it
+      followed soon. It is in our natures, as I then experienced, never more to
+      desire a thing than when we see it lost to us. Bitterly now did I reproach
+      myself for not having borne her off with me two nights ago when I had fled
+      Fifanti's house, when she herself had urged that course upon me. I
+      despised myself, out of my present want, for my repudiation of her&mdash;a
+      hundred times more bitterly than I had despised myself when I imagined
+      that I had done a vileness by that repudiation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never until now, did it seem to me, had I known how deeply I loved her,
+      how deeply the roots of our passion had burrowed down into my heart, and
+      fastened there to be eradicated only with life itself. So thought I then;
+      and thinking so I cried her name aloud, called to her through the scented
+      pine-woods, thus voicing my longing and my despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And swift on the heels of this would come another mood. There would come
+      the consciousness of the sin of it all, the imperative need to cleanse
+      myself of this, to efface her memory from my soul which could not hold it
+      without sinning anew in fierce desire. I strove to do so with all my poor
+      weak might. I denounced her to myself again for a soulless harlot; blamed
+      her for all the ill that had befallen me; accounted her the very hand that
+      had wielded me, a senseless instrument, to slay her importunate husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then I perceived that this was as pitiful a ruse of self-deception as
+      that of the fox in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes above
+      him. For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort of his
+      will the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
+      ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came to
+      the broad bed of a river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which was
+      diminished by the long drought. Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
+      stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
+      brown city upon the rising ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the ancient
+      boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the historic
+      spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to win back to
+      France after the occupation of Naples. But the grotesque little king who
+      had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my thoughts not at all
+      just then. The Taro brought me memories not of battle, but of home. To
+      reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up the valley towards that
+      long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me, with the tall bulks of
+      Mount Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps sparkling in the flood of
+      sunshine that poured down upon them. Two hours, or perhaps three at most,
+      along the track of that cool, glittering water, and the grey citadel of
+      Mondolfo would come into view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this very reflection that brought me now to consider my condition;
+      to ask myself whither I should turn. Money I had none&mdash;not so much as
+      a single copper grosso. To sell I had nothing but the clothes I stood in&mdash;black,
+      clerkly garments that I had got yesterday at Mondolfo. Not so much as a
+      weapon had I that I might have bartered for a few coins. There was the
+      mule; that should yield a ducat or two. But when this was spent, what
+      then? To go a suppliant to that pious icicle my mother were worse than
+      useless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whither was I to turn&mdash;I, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina, one of the
+      wealthiest and most puissant tyrants of this Val di Taro? It provoked me
+      almost to laughter, of a fierce and bitter sort. Perhaps some peasant of
+      the contado would take pity on his lord and give him shelter and
+      nourishment in exchange for such labour as his lord might turn his stout
+      limbs to upon that peasant's land, which was my own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might perhaps essay it. Certainly it was the only thing that was left
+      me. For against my mother and to support my rights I might not invoke a
+      law which had placed me under a ban, a law that would deal me out its
+      rigours did I reveal myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I had thoughts of seeking sanctuary in some monastery, of offering
+      myself as a lay-brother, to do menial work, and in this way perhaps I
+      might find peace, and, in a lesser degree than was originally intended,
+      the comforts of the religion to which I had been so grossly unfaithful.
+      The thought grew and developed into a resolve. It brought me some comfort.
+      It became a desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I pushed on, following the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper,
+      conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule was showing
+      signs of weariness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some three miles farther, having by then penetrated the green rampart of
+      the foothills, I came upon the little village of Pojetta. It is a village
+      composed of a single street throwing out as its branches a few narrow
+      alleys, possessing a dingy church and a dingier tavern; this last had for
+      only sign a bunch of withered rosemary that hung above its grimy doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I drew rein there as utterly weary as my mule, hungry and thirsty and
+      weak. I got down and invited the suspicious scrutiny of the lantern-jawed
+      taverner, who, for all that my appearance was humble enough in such
+      garments as I wore, must have accounted me none the less of too fine an
+      air for such a house as his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Care for my beast,&rdquo; I bade him. &ldquo;I shall stay here an hour or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded surlily, and led the mule away, whilst I entered the tavern's
+      single room. Coming into it from the sunlight I could scarcely see
+      anything at first, so dark did the place seem. What light there was came
+      through the open door; for the chamber's single window had long since been
+      rendered opaque by a screen of accumulated dust and cobwebs. It was a
+      roomy place, low-ceilinged with blackened rafters running parallel across
+      its dirty yellow wash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor was strewn with foul rushes that must have lain unchanged for
+      months, slippery with grease and littered with bones that had been flung
+      there by the polite guests the place was wont to entertain. And it stank
+      most vilely of rancid oil and burnt meats and other things indefinable in
+      all but their acrid, nauseating, unclean pungency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fire was burning low at the room's far end, and over this a girl was
+      stooping, tending something in a stew-pot. She looked round at my advent,
+      and revealed herself for a tall, black-haired, sloe-eyed wench, comely in
+      a rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms which were
+      bared to the elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron. She slouched
+      forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled out a
+      stool for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grouped about the upper end of this table sat four men of the peasant
+      type, sun-tanned, bearded, and rudely garbed in loose jerkins and cross
+      gartered leg cloths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence had fallen upon them as I entered, and they too were now
+      inspecting me with a frank interest which in their simple way they made no
+      attempt to conceal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sank wearily to the stool, paying little heed to them, and in answer to
+      the girl's invitation to command her, I begged for meat and bread and
+      wine. Whilst she was preparing these, one of the men addressed me civilly;
+      and I answered him as civilly but absently, for I had enough of other
+      matters to engage my thoughts. Then another of them questioned me in a
+      friendly tone as to whence I came. Instinctively I concealed the truth,
+      answering vaguely that I was from Castel Guelfo&mdash;which was the
+      neighbourhood in which I had overtaken my Lord Gambara and Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do they say at Castel Guelfo of the things that are happening in
+      Piacenza?&rdquo; asked another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Piacenza?&rdquo; quoth I. &ldquo;Why, what is happening in Piacenza?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eagerly, with an ardour to show themselves intimate with the affairs of
+      towns, as is the way of rustics, they related to me what already I had
+      gathered to be the vulgar version of Fifanti's death. Each spoke in turn,
+      cutting in the moment another paused to breathe, and sometimes they spoke
+      together, each anxious to have the extent of his information revealed and
+      appreciated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of Fifanti's
+      wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and had gone to
+      visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying near by in wait,
+      and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon after and attacked
+      him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him. And then that wily,
+      fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the young Lord of
+      Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and he had caused the
+      young man's arrest. But this the Piacentini would not endure. They had
+      risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was fled to Rome or
+      Parma, whilst the authorities to avoid a scandal had connived at the
+      escape of Messer d'Anguissola, who was also gone, no man knew whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The news had travelled speedily into that mountain fastness, it seemed.
+      But it had been garbled at its source. The Piacentini conceived that they
+      held some evidence of what they believed&mdash;the evidence of the lad
+      whom Fifanti had left to spy and who had borne him the tale that the
+      Cardinal was within. This evidence they accounted well-confirmed by the
+      Legate's flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus is history written. Not a doubt but that some industrious scribe in
+      Piacenza with a grudge against Gambara, would set down what was the talk
+      of the town; and hereafter, it is not to be doubted, the murder of Astorre
+      Fifanti for the vilest of all motives will be added to the many crimes of
+      Egidio Gambara, that posterity may execrate his name even beyond its
+      already rich enough deserts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard them in silence and but little moved, yet with a question now and
+      then to probe how far this silly story went in detail. And whilst they
+      were still heaping abuse upon the Legate&mdash;of whom they spoke as Jews
+      may speak of pork&mdash;came the lantern-jawed host with a dish of broiled
+      goat, some bread, and a jug of wine. This he set before me, then joined
+      them in their vituperation of Messer Gambara.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ate ravenously, and for all that I do not doubt the meat was tough and
+      burnt, yet at the time those pieces of broiled goat upon that dirty table
+      seemed the sweetest food that ever had been set before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finding that I was but indifferently communicative and had little news to
+      give them, the peasants fell to gossiping among themselves, and they were
+      presently joined by the girl, whose name, it seemed, was Giovannozza. She
+      came to startle them with the rumour of a fresh miracle attributed to the
+      hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked up with more interest than I had hitherto shown in anything that
+      had been said, and I inquired who might be this anchorite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sainted Virgin!&rdquo; cried the girl, setting her hands upon her generous
+      hips, and turning her bold sloe-eyes upon me in a stare of incredulity.
+      &ldquo;Whence are you, sir, that you seem to know nothing of the world? You had
+      not heard the news of Piacenza, which must be known to everyone by now;
+      and you have never heard of the anchorite of Monte Orsaro!&rdquo; She appealed
+      by a gesture to Heaven against the Stygian darkness of my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a very holy man,&rdquo; said one of the peasants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he dwells alone in a hut midway up the mountain,&rdquo; added a second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a hut which he built for himself with his own hands,&rdquo; a third
+      explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he lives on nuts and herbs and such scraps of food as are left him by
+      the charitable,&rdquo; put in the fourth, to show himself as full of knowledge
+      as his fellows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now it was Giovannozza who took up the story, firmly and resolutely;
+      and being a woman she easily kept her tongue going and overbore the
+      peasants so that they had no further share in the tale until it was
+      entirely told. From her I learnt that the anchorite, one Fra Sebastiano,
+      possessed a miraculous image of the blessed martyr St. Sebastian, whose
+      wounds miraculously bled during Passion Week, and that there were no ills
+      in the world that this blood would not cure, provided that those to whom
+      it was applied were clean of mortal sin and imbued with the spirit of
+      grace and faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No pious wayfarer going over the Pass of Cisa into Tuscany but would turn
+      aside to kiss the image and ask a blessing at the hands of the anchorite;
+      and yearly in the season of the miraculous manifestation, great
+      pilgrimages were made to the hermitage by folk from the Valleys of the
+      Taro and Bagnanza, and even from beyond the Apennines. So that Fra
+      Sebastiano gathered great store of alms, part of which he redistributed
+      amongst the poor, part of which he was saving to build a bridge over the
+      Bagnanza torrent, in crossing which so many poor folk had lost their
+      lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I listened intently to the tale of wonders that followed, and now the
+      peasants joined in again, each with a story of some marvellous cure of
+      which he had direct knowledge. And many and amazing were the details they
+      gave me of the saint&mdash;for they spoke of him as a saint already&mdash;so
+      that no doubt lingered in my mind of the holiness of this anchorite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giovannozza related how a goatherd coming one night over the pass had
+      heard from the neighbourhood of the hut the sounds of singing, and the
+      music was the strangest and sweetest ever sounded on earth, so that it
+      threw the poor fellow into a strange ecstasy, and it was beyond doubt that
+      what he had heard was an angel choir. And then one of the peasants, the
+      tallest and blackest of the four, swore with a great oath that one night
+      when he himself had been in the hills he had seen the hermit's hut all
+      aglow with heavenly light against the black mass of the mountain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this left me presently very thoughtful, filled with wonder and
+      amazement. Then their talk shifted again, and it was of the vintage they
+      discoursed, the fine yield of grapes about Fontana Fredda, and the heavy
+      crop of oil that there would be that year. And then with the hum of their
+      voices gradually receding, it ceased altogether for me, and I was asleep
+      with my head pillowed upon my arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be an hour later when I awakened, a little stiff and cramped from
+      the uncomfortable position in which I had rested. The peasants had
+      departed and the surly-faced host was standing at my side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should be resuming your journey,&rdquo; said he, seeing me awake. &ldquo;It wants
+      but a couple of hours to sunset, and if you are going over the pass it
+      were well not to let the night overtake you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My journey?&rdquo; said I aloud, and looked askance at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whither, in Heaven's name, was I journeying?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I bethought me of my earlier resolve to seek shelter in some convent,
+      and his mention of the pass caused me to think now that it would be wiser
+      to cross the mountains into Tuscany. There I should be beyond the reach of
+      the talons of the Farnese law, which might close upon me again at any time
+      so long as I was upon Pontifical territory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose heavily, and suddenly bethought me of my utter lack of money. It
+      dismayed me for a moment. Then I remembered the mule, and determined that
+      I must go afoot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a mule to sell,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the beast in your stables.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He scratched his ear, reflecting no doubt upon the drift of my
+      announcement. &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he said dubiously. &ldquo;And to what market are you taking
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am offering it to you,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me?&rdquo; he cried, and instantly suspicion entered his crafty eye and
+      darkened his brow. &ldquo;Where got you the mule?&rdquo; he asked, and snapped his
+      lips together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl entering at that moment stood at gaze, listening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did I get it?&rdquo; I echoed. &ldquo;What is that to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled unpleasantly. &ldquo;It is this to me: that if the bargelli were to
+      come up here and discover a stolen mule in my stables, it would be an ill
+      thing for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I flushed angrily. &ldquo;Do you imply that I stole the mule?&rdquo; said I, so
+      fiercely that he changed his air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay now, nay now,&rdquo; he soothed me. &ldquo;And, after all, it happens that I do
+      not want a mule. I have one mule already, and I am a poor man, and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fig for your whines,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Here is the case. I have no money&mdash;not
+      a grosso. So the mule must pay for my dinner. Name your price, and let us
+      have done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; he fumed at me. &ldquo;I am to buy your stolen beast, am I? I am to be
+      frightened by your violence into buying it? Be off, you rogue, or I'll
+      raise the village and make short work of you. Be off, I say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He backed away as he spoke, towards the fireplace, and from the corner
+      took a stout oaken staff. He was a villain, a thieving rogue. That much
+      was plain. And it was no less plain that I must submit, and leave my beast
+      to him, or else perhaps suffer a worse alternative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had those four honest peasants still been there, he would not have dared
+      to have so borne himself. But as it was, without witnesses to say how the
+      thing had truly happened, if he raised the village against me how should
+      they believe a man who confessed that he had eaten a dinner for which he
+      could not pay? It must go very ill with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I tried conclusions with him, I could break him in two notwithstanding
+      his staff. But there would remain the girl to give the alarm, and when to
+      dishonesty I should have added violence, my case would be that of any
+      common bandit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You are a dirty, thieving rascal, and a vile one to
+      take advantage of one in my position. I shall return for the mule another
+      day. Meanwhile consider it in pledge for what I owe you. But see that you
+      are ready for the reckoning when I present it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that, I swung on my heel, strode past the big-eyed girl, out of that
+      foul kennel into God's sweet air, followed by the ordures of speech which
+      that knave flung after me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned up the street, setting my face towards the mountains, and trudged
+      amain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon I was out of the village and ascending the steep road towards the
+      Pass of Cisa that leads over the Apennines to Pontremoli. This way had
+      Hannibal come when he penetrated into Etruria some two thousand years ago.
+      I quitted the road and took to bridle-paths under the shoulder of the
+      mighty Mount Prinzera. Thus I pushed on and upward through grey-green of
+      olive and deep enamelled green of fig-trees, and came at last into a
+      narrow gorge between two great mountains, a place of ferns and moisture
+      where all was shadow and the air felt chill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above me the mountains towered to the blue heavens, their flanks of a
+      green that was in places turned to golden, where Autumn's fingers had
+      already touched those heights, in places gashed with grey and purple
+      wounds, where the bare rock thrust through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went on aimlessly, and came presently upon a little fir thicket, through
+      which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters. I stood at last upon
+      the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty gorge which
+      it had cloven itself between the hills. Thence I looked down a long,
+      wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun were slanting, and
+      hazily in the distance I could see the russet city of Fornovo which I had
+      earlier passed that day. This torrent was the Bagnanza, and it effectively
+      barred all passage. So I went up, along its bed, scrambling over lichened
+      rocks or sinking my feet into carpets of soft, yielding moss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, grown weary and uncertain of my way, I sank down to rest and
+      think. And my thoughts were chiefly of that hermit somewhere above me in
+      these hills, and of the blessedness of such a life, remote from the world
+      that man had made so evil. And then, with thinking of the world, came
+      thoughts of Giuliana. Two nights ago I had held her in my arms. Two nights
+      ago! And already it seemed a century remote&mdash;as remote as all the
+      rest of that life of which it seemed a part. For there had been a break in
+      my existence with the murder of Fifanti, and in the past two days I had
+      done more living and I had aged more than in all the eighteen years
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking of Giuliana, I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of her
+      hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous in
+      their smile. My spirit conjured her to stand before me all white and
+      seductive as I had known her, and my longings were again upon me like a
+      searing torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I fought them hard. I sought to shut that image out. But it abode to mock
+      me. And then faintly from the valley, borne upon the breeze that came
+      sighing through the fir-trees, rose the tinkle of an Angelus bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I fell upon my knees and prayed to the Mother of Purity for strength, and
+      thus I came once more to peace. That done I crept under the shelter of a
+      projecting rock, wrapped my cloak tightly about me, and lay down upon the
+      hard ground to rest, for I was very weary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lying there I watched the colour fading from the sky. I saw the purple
+      lights in the east turn to an orange that paled into faintest yellow, and
+      this again into turquoise. The shadows crept up those heights. A star came
+      out overhead, then another, then a score of stars to sparkle silvery in
+      the blue-black heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned on my side, and closed my eyes, seeking to sleep; and then quite
+      suddenly I heard a sound of unutterable sweetness&mdash;a melody so faint
+      and subtle that it had none of the form and rhythm of earthly music. I sat
+      up, my breath almost arrested, and listened more intently. I could still
+      hear it, but very faint and distant. It was as a sound of silver bells,
+      and yet it was not quite that. I remembered the stories I had heard that
+      day in the tavern at Pojetta, and the talk of the mystic melodies by which
+      travellers had been drawn to the anchorite's abode. I noted the direction
+      of the sound, and I determined to be guided by it, and to cast myself at
+      the feet of that holy man, to implore of him who could heal bodies the
+      miracle of my soul's healing and my mind's purging from its torment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I pushed on, then, through the luminous night, keeping as much as possible
+      to the open, for under trees lesser obstacles were not to be discerned.
+      The melody grew louder as I advanced, ever following the Bagnanza towards
+      its source; and the stream, too, being much less turbulent now, did not
+      overbear that other sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a melody on long humming notes, chiefly, it seemed to me, upon two
+      notes with the occasional interjection of a third and fourth, and, at long
+      and rare intervals, of a fifth. It was harmonious beyond all description,
+      just as it was weird and unearthly; but now that I heard it more
+      distinctly it had much more the sound of bells&mdash;very sweet and
+      silvery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, quite suddenly, I was startled by a human cry&mdash;a piteous,
+      wailing cry that told of helplessness and pain. I went forward more
+      quickly in the direction whence it came, rounded a stout hazel coppice,
+      and stood suddenly before a rude hut of pine logs built against the side
+      of the rock. Through a small unglazed window came a feeble shaft of light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I halted there, breathless and a little afraid. This must be the dwelling
+      of the anchorite. I stood upon holy ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the cry was repeated. It proceeded from the hut. I advanced to
+      the window, took courage and peered in. By the light of a little brass oil
+      lamp with a single wick I could faintly make out the interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rock itself formed the far wall of it, and in this a niche was carved&mdash;a
+      deep, capacious niche in the shadows of which I could faintly discern a
+      figure some two feet in height, which I doubted not would be the
+      miraculous image of St. Sebastian. In front of this was a rude wooden
+      pulpit set very low, and upon it a great book with iron clasps and a
+      yellow, grinning skull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this I beheld at a single glance. There was no other furniture in that
+      little place, neither chair nor table; and the brass lamp was set upon the
+      floor, near a heaped-up bed of rushes and dried leaves upon which I beheld
+      the anchorite himself. He was lying upon his back, and seemed a vigorous,
+      able-bodied man of a good length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wore a loose brown habit roughly tied about his middle by a piece of
+      rope from which was suspended an enormous string of beads. His beard and
+      hair were black, but his face was livid as a corpse's, and as I looked at
+      him he emitted a fresh groan, and writhed as if in mortal suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O my God! My God!&rdquo; I heard him crying. &ldquo;Am I to die alone? Mercy! I
+      repent me!&rdquo; And he writhed moaning, and rolled over on his side so that he
+      faced me, and I saw that his livid countenance was glistening with sweat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stepped aside and lifted the latch of the rude door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you suffering, father?&rdquo; I asked, almost fearfully. At the sound of my
+      voice, he suddenly sat up, and there was a great fear in his eyes. Then he
+      fell back again with a cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I entered, and crossing to his side, I went down on my knees beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without giving me time to speak, he clutched my arm with one of his clammy
+      hands, and raised himself painfully upon his elbow, his eyes burning with
+      the fever that was in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A priest!&rdquo; he gasped. &ldquo;Get me a priest! Oh, if you would be saved from
+      the flames of everlasting Hell, get me a priest to shrive me. I am dying,
+      and I would not go hence with the burden of all this sin upon my soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could feel the heat of his hand through the sleeve of my coat. His
+      condition was plain. A raging fever was burning out his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be comforted,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I will go at once.&rdquo; And I rose, whilst he poured
+      forth his blessings upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door I checked to ask what was the nearest place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Casi,&rdquo; he said hoarsely. &ldquo;To your right, you will see the path down the
+      hill-side. You cannot miss it. In half an hour you should be there. And
+      return at once, for I have not long. I feel it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a last word of reassurance and comfort I closed the door, and plunged
+      away into the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE RENUNCIATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I found the path the hermit spoke of, and followed its sinuous downhill
+      course, now running when the ground was open, now moving more cautiously,
+      yet always swiftly, when it led me through places darkened by trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of a half-hour I espied below me the twinkling lights of a
+      village on the hill-side, and a few minutes later I was among the houses
+      of Casi. To find the priest in his little cottage by the church was an
+      easy matter; to tell him my errand and to induce him to come with me, to
+      tend the holy man who lay dying alone in the mountain, was as easy. To
+      return, however, was the most difficult part of the undertaking; for the
+      upward path was steep, and the priest was old and needed such assistance
+      as my own very weary limbs could scarcely render him. We had the advantage
+      of a lanthorn which he insisted upon bringing, and we made as good
+      progress as could be expected. But it was best part of two hours after my
+      setting out before we stood once more upon the little platform where the
+      hermit had his hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found the place in utter darkness. Through lack of oil his little lamp
+      had burned itself out; and when we entered, the man on the bed of wattles
+      lay singing a lewd tavern-song, which, coming from such holy lips, filled
+      me with horror and amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old priest, with that vast and doleful experience of death-beds
+      which belongs to men of his class, was quick to perceive the cause of
+      this. The fever was flickering up before life's final extinction, and the
+      poor moribund was delirious and knew not what he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour we watched beside him, waiting. The priest was confident that
+      there would be a return of consciousness and a spell of lucidity before
+      the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through that lugubrious hour I squatted there, watching the awful process
+      of human dissolution for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Save in the case of Fifanti I had never yet seen death; nor could it be
+      said that I had really seen it then. With the pedant, death had been a
+      sudden sharp severing of the thread of life, and I had been conscious that
+      he was dead without any appreciation of death itself, blinded in part by
+      my own exalted condition at the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in this death of Fra Sebastiano I was heated by no participation. I
+      was an unwilling and detached spectator, brought there by force of
+      circumstance; and my mind received from the spectacle an impression not
+      easily to be effaced, an impression which may have been answerable in part
+      for that which followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards dawn at last the sick man's babblings&mdash;and they were mostly
+      as profane and lewd as his occasional bursts of song&mdash;were quieted.
+      The unseeing glitter of his eyes that had ever and anon been turned upon
+      us was changed to a dull and heavy consciousness, and he struggled to
+      rise, but his limbs refused their office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest leaned over him with a whispered word of comfort, then turned
+      and signed to me to leave the hut. I rose, and went towards the door. But
+      I had scarcely reached it when there was a hoarse cry behind me followed
+      by a gasping sob from the priest. I started round to see the hermit lying
+      on his back, his face rigid, his mouth open and idiotic, his eyes more
+      leaden than they had been a moment since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I cried, despite myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has gone, my son,&rdquo; answered the old priest sorrowfully. &ldquo;But he was
+      contrite, and he had lived a saint.&rdquo; And drawing from his breast a little
+      silver box, he proceeded to perform the last rites upon the body from
+      which the soul was already fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came slowly back and knelt beside him, and long we remained there in
+      silent prayer for the repose of that blessed spirit. And whilst we prayed
+      the wind rose outside, and a storm grew in the bosom of the night that had
+      been so fair and tranquil. The lightning flashed and illumined the
+      interior of that hut with a vividness as of broad daylight, throwing into
+      livid relief the arrow-pierced St. Sebastian in the niche and the ghastly,
+      grinning skull upon the hermit's pulpit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thunder crashed and crackled, and the echoes of its artillery went
+      booming and rolling round the hills, whilst the rain fell in a terrific
+      lashing downpour. Some of it finding a weakness in the roof, trickled and
+      dripped and formed a puddle in the middle of the hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For upwards of an hour the storm raged, and all the while we remained upon
+      our knees beside the dead anchorite. Then the thunder receded and
+      gradually died away in the distance; the rain ceased; and the dawn crept
+      pale as a moon-stone adown the valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went out to breathe the freshened air just as the first touches of the
+      sun quickened to an opal splendour the pallor of that daybreak. All the
+      earth was steaming, and the Bagnanza, suddenly swollen, went thundering
+      down the gorge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sunrise we dug a grave just below the platform with a spade which I
+      found in the hut. There we buried the hermit, and over the spot I made a
+      great cross with the largest stones that I could find. The priest would
+      have given him burial in the hut itself; but I suggested that perhaps
+      there might be some other who would be willing to take the hermit's place,
+      and consecrate his life to carrying on the man's pious work of guarding
+      that shrine and collecting alms for the poor and for the building of the
+      bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My tone caused the priest to look at me with sharp, kindly eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you such thoughts for yourself, perchance?&rdquo; he asked me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you should adjudge me too unworthy for the office,&rdquo; I answered
+      humbly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are very young, my son,&rdquo; he said, and laid a kindly hand upon my
+      shoulder. &ldquo;Have you suffered, then, so sorely at the hands of the world
+      that you should wish to renounce it and to take up this lonely life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was intended for the priesthood, father,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I aspired to holy
+      orders. But through the sins of the flesh I have rendered myself unworthy.
+      Here, perhaps, I can expiate and cleanse my heart of all the foulness it
+      gathered in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left me an hour or so later, to make his way back to Casi, having heard
+      enough of my past and having judged sufficiently of my attitude of mind to
+      approve me in my determination to do penance and seek peace in that
+      isolation. Before going he bade me seek him out at Casi at any time should
+      any doubts assail me, or should I find that the burden I had taken up was
+      too heavy for my shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I watched him go down the winding, mountain path, watched the bent old
+      figure in his long black gaberdine, until a turn in the path and a clump
+      of chestnuts hid him from my sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I first tasted the loneliness to which on that fair morning I had
+      vowed myself. The desolation of it touched me and awoke self-pity in my
+      heart, to extinguish utterly the faint flame of ecstasy that had warmed me
+      when first I thought of taking the dead anchorite's place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not yet twenty, I was lord of great possessions, and of life I had
+      tasted no more than one poisonous, reckless draught; yet I was done with
+      the world&mdash;driven out of it by penitence. It was just; but it was
+      bitter. And then I felt again that touch of ecstasy to reflect that it was
+      the bitterness of the resolve that made it worthy, that through its very
+      harshness was it that this path should lead to grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on I busied myself with an inspection of the hut, and my first
+      attentions were for the miraculous image. I looked upon it with awe, and I
+      knelt to it in prayer for forgiveness for the unworthiness I brought to
+      the service of the shrine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The image itself was very crude of workmanship and singularly ghastly. It
+      reminded me poignantly of the Crucifix that had hung upon the whitewashed
+      wall of my mother's private dining-room and had been so repellent to my
+      young eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From two arrow wounds in the breast descended two brown streaks, relics of
+      the last miraculous manifestation. The face of the young Roman centurion
+      who had suffered martyrdom for his conversion to Christianity was smiling
+      very sweetly and looking upwards, and in that part of his work the
+      sculptor had been very happy. But the rest of the carving was gruesome and
+      the anatomy was gross and bad, the figure being so disproportionately
+      broad as to convey the impression of a stunted dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The big book standing upon the pulpit of plain deal proved, as I had
+      expected, to be a missal; and it became my custom to recite from it each
+      morning thereafter the office for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a rude cupboard I found a jar of baked earth that was half full of oil,
+      and another larger jar containing some cakes of maize bread and a handful
+      of chestnuts. There was also a brown bundle which resolved itself into a
+      monkish habit within which was rolled a hair-shirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took pleasure in this discovery, and I set myself at once to strip off
+      my secular garments and to don this coarse brown habit, which, by reason
+      of my great height, descended but midway down my calves. For lack of
+      sandals I went barefoot, and having made a bundle of the clothes I had
+      removed I thrust them into the cupboard in the place of those which I had
+      taken thence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus did I, who had been vowed to the anchorite order of St. Augustine,
+      enter upon my life as an unordained anchorite. I dragged out the wattles
+      upon which my blessed predecessor had breathed his last, and having swept
+      the place clean with a bundle of hazel-switches which I cut for the
+      purpose, I went to gather fresh boughs and rushes by the swollen torrent,
+      and with these I made myself a bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My existence became not only one of loneliness, but of grim privation.
+      People rarely came my way, save for a few faithful women from Casi or
+      Fiori who solicited my prayers in return for the oil and maize-cakes which
+      they left me, and sometimes whole days would pass without the sight of a
+      single human being. These maize-cakes formed my chief nourishment,
+      together with a store of nuts from the hazel coppice that grew before my
+      door and some chestnuts which I went further afield to gather in the
+      woods. Occasionally, as a gift, there would be a jar of olives, which was
+      the greatest delicacy that I savoured in those days. No flesh-food or fish
+      did I ever taste, so that I grew very lean and often suffered hunger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My days were spent partly in prayer and partly in meditation, and I
+      pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
+      Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that great
+      father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much sin as
+      had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair. And as yet I had
+      received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed at
+      Piacenza. I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do penance
+      first, but the penance had never been imposed. I was imposing it now. All
+      my life should I impose it thus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought appalled
+      me, for I must not die in sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I
+      would send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my
+      hermitage, and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at
+      his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
+      certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
+      summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth. But anon this changed and
+      I would catch the thoughts that should have been bent upon pious
+      meditation glancing backward with regretful longings at that life out of
+      which I had departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would start up in a pious rage and cast out such thoughts by more
+      strenuous prayer and still more strenuous fasting. But as my body grew
+      accustomed to the discomforts to which it was subjected, my mind assumed a
+      rebellious freedom that clogged the work of purification upon which I
+      strove to engage it. My stomach out of its very emptiness conjured up evil
+      visions to torment me in the night, and with these I vainly wrestled until
+      I remembered the measures which Fra Gervasio told me that he had taken in
+      like case. I had then the happy inspiration to have recourse to the
+      hair-shirt, which hitherto I had dreaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be towards the end of October, as the days were growing colder,
+      that I first put on that armour against the shafts of Satan. It galled me
+      horribly and fretted my tender flesh at almost every movement; but so at
+      least, at the expense of the body, I won back to some peace of mind, and
+      the flesh, being quelled and subdued, no longer interposed its evil
+      humours to the purity I desired for my meditations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For upwards of a month, then, the mild torture of the goat's-hair cilice
+      did the office I required of it. But towards December, my skin having
+      grown tough and callous from the perpetual irritation, and inured to the
+      fretting of the sharp hair, my mind once more began to wander mutinously.
+      To check it again I put off the cilice, and with it all other
+      undergarments, retaining no more clothing than just the rough brown
+      monkish habit. Thus I exposed myself to the rigours of the weather, for it
+      had grown very cold in those heights where I dwelt, and the snows were
+      creeping nearer adown the mountain-side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had seen the green of the valley turn to gold and then to flaming brown.
+      I had seen the fire perish out of those autumnal tints, and with the
+      falling of the leaves, a slow, grey, bald decrepitude covering the world.
+      And to this had now succeeded chill wintry gales that howled and whistled
+      through the logs of my wretched hut, whilst the western wind coming down
+      over the frozen zone above cut into me like a knife's edge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And famished as I was I felt this coldness the more, and daily I grew
+      leaner until there was little left of my erstwhile lusty vigour, and I was
+      reduced to a parcel of bones held together in a bag of skin, so that it
+      almost seemed that I must rattle as I walked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suffered, and yet I was glad to suffer, and took a joy in my pain,
+      thanking God for the grace of permitting me to endure it, since the
+      greater the discomforts of my body, the more numbed became the pain of my
+      mind, the more removed from me were the lures of longing with which Satan
+      still did battle for my soul. In pain itself I seemed to find the
+      nepenthes that others seek from pain; in suffering was my Lethean draught
+      that brought the only oblivion that I craved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think that in those months my reason wandered a little under all this
+      strain; and I think to-day that the long ecstasies into which I fell were
+      largely the result of a feverishness that burned in me as a consequence of
+      a chill that I had taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would spend long hours upon my knees in prayer and meditation. And
+      remembering how others in such case as mine had known the great boon and
+      blessing of heavenly visions, I prayed and hoped for some such sign of
+      grace, confident in its power to sustain me thereafter against all
+      possible temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, one night, as the year was touching its end, it seemed to me
+      that my prayer was answered. I do not think that my vision was a dream;
+      leastways, I do not think that I was asleep when it visited me. I was on
+      my knees at the time, beside my bed of wattles, and it was very late at
+      night. Suddenly the far end of my hut grew palely lucent, as if a
+      phosphorescent vapour were rising from the ground; it waved and rolled as
+      it ascended in billows of incandescence, and then out of the heart of it
+      there gradually grew a figure all in white over which there was a cloak of
+      deepest blue all flecked with golden stars, and in the folded hands a
+      sheaf of silver lilies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew no fear. My pulses throbbed and my heart beat ponderously but
+      rapturously as I watched the vision growing more and more distinct until I
+      could make out the pale face of ineffable sweetness and the veiled eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Blessed Madonna, as Messer Pordenone had painted her in the
+      Church of Santa Chiara at Piacenza; the dress, the lilies, the sweet pale
+      visage, all were known to me, even the billowing cloud upon which one
+      little naked foot was resting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cried out in longing and in rapture, and I held out my arms to that
+      sweet vision. But even as I did so its aspect gradually changed. Under the
+      upper part of the blue mantle, which formed a veil, was spread a mass of
+      ruddy, gleaming hair; the snowy pallor of the face was warmed to the tint
+      of ivory, and the lips deepened to scarlet and writhed in a voluptuous
+      smile; the dark eyes glowed languidly; the lilies faded away, and the pale
+      hands were held out to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Giuliana!&rdquo; I cried, and my pure and piously joyous ecstasy was changed
+      upon the instant to fierce, carnal longings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Giuliana!&rdquo; I held out my arms, and slowly she floated towards me, over
+      the rough earthen floor of my cell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A frenzy of craving seized me. I was impatient to lock my arms once more
+      about that fair sleek body. I sought to rise, to go to meet her slow
+      approach, to lessen by a second this agony of waiting. But my limbs were
+      powerless. I was as if cast in lead, whilst more and more slowly she
+      approached me, so languorously mocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then revulsion took me, suddenly and without any cause or warning. I
+      put my hands to my face to shut out a vision whose true significance I
+      realized as in a flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Retro me, Sathanas!&rdquo; I thundered. &ldquo;Jesus! Maria!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose at last numbed and stiff. I looked again. The vision had departed.
+      I was alone in my cell, and the rain was falling steadily outside. I
+      groaned despairingly. Then I swayed, reeled sideways and lost all
+      consciousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I awoke it was broad day, and the pale wintry sun shone silvery from
+      a winter sky. I was very weak and very cold, and when I attempted to rise
+      all things swam round me, and the floor of my cell appeared to heave like
+      the deck of a ship upon a rolling sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For days thereafter I was as a man entranced, alternately frozen with cold
+      and burning with fever; and but that a shepherd who had turned aside to
+      ask the hermit's blessing discovered me in that condition, and remained,
+      out of his charity, for some three days to tend me, it is more than likely
+      I should have died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He nourished me with the milk of goats, a luxury upon which my strength
+      grew swiftly, and even after he had quitted my hut he still came daily for
+      a week to visit me, and daily he insisted that I should consume the milk
+      he brought me, overruling my protests that my need being overpast there
+      was no longer the necessity to pamper me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter I knew a season of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, I then reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a
+      masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned the
+      contest. Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor glory
+      in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse. I thanked Heaven
+      for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of its
+      protection for a vessel so weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the hill-side and valley began to put on the raiment of a new
+      year. February, like a benignant nymph, tripped down by meadow and stream,
+      and touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And soon, where she
+      had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones, scarlet, blue and
+      purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of spring in their tender
+      harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling nardosmia waved their
+      incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted by the streams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then as birch and beech and oak and chestnut put forth a garb of tender
+      pallid green, March advanced and Easter came on apace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the approach of Easter filled me with a staggering dread. It was in
+      Passion Week that the miracle of the image that I guarded was wont to
+      manifest itself. What if through my unworthiness it should fail? The fear
+      appalled me, and I redoubled my prayers. There was need; for spring which
+      touched the earth so benignly had not passed me by. And at moments certain
+      longings for the world would stir in me again, and again would come those
+      agonizing thoughts of Giuliana which I had conceived were for ever laid to
+      rest, so that I sought refuge once more in the hair-shirt; and when this
+      had once more lost its efficacy, I took long whip-like branches of tender
+      eglantine to fashion a scourge with which I flagellated my naked body so
+      that the thorns tore my flesh and set my rebellious blood to flow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, at last, as I sat outside my hut, gazing over the rolling
+      emerald uplands, I had my reward. I almost fainted when first I realized
+      it in the extremity of my joy and thankfulness. Very faintly, just as I
+      had heard it that night when first I came to the hermitage, I heard now
+      the mystic, bell-like music that had guided my footsteps thither. Never
+      since that night had the sound of it reached me, though often I had
+      listened for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came now wafted down to me, it seemed, upon the evening breeze, a sound
+      of angelic chimes infinitely ravishing to my senses, and stirring my heart
+      to such an ecstasy of faith and happiness as I had never yet known since
+      my coming thither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a sign&mdash;a sign of pardon, a sign of grace. It could be naught
+      else. I fell upon my knees and rendered my deep and joyous thanks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in all the week that followed that unearthly silver music was with me,
+      infinitely soothing and solacing. I could wander afield, yet it never left
+      me, unless I chanced to go so near the tumbling waters of the Bagnanza
+      that their thunder drowned that other blessed sound. I took courage and
+      confidence. Passion Week drew nigh; but it no longer had any terrors for
+      me. I was adjudged worthy of the guardianship of the shrine. Yet I prayed,
+      and made St. Sebastian the special object of my devotions, that he should
+      not fail me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      April came, as I learnt of the stray visitors who, of their charity,
+      brought me the alms of bread, and the second day of it was the first of
+      Holy Week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. INTRUDERS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was on Holy Thursday that the image usually began to bleed, and it
+      would continue so to do until the dawn of Easter Sunday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each day now, as the time drew nearer, I watched the image closely, and on
+      the Wednesday I watched it with a dread anxiety I could not repress, for
+      as yet there was no faintest sign. The brown streaks that marked the
+      course of the last bleeding continued dry. All that night I prayed
+      intently, in a torture of doubt, yet soothed a little by the gentle music
+      that was never absent now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the first glint of dawn I heard steps outside the hut; but I did not
+      stir. By sunrise there was a murmur of voices like the muttering of a sea
+      upon its shore. I rose and peered more closely at the saint. He was just
+      wood, inanimate and insensible, and there was still no sign. Outside, I
+      knew, a crowd of pilgrims was already gathered. They were waiting, poor
+      souls. But what was their waiting compared with mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another hour I knelt there, still beseeching Heaven to take mercy upon me.
+      But Heaven remained unresponsive and the wounds of the image continued
+      dry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose, at last, in a sort of despair, and going to the door of the hut, I
+      flung it wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The platform was filled with a great crowd of peasantry, and an overflow
+      poured down the sides of it and surged up the hill on the right and the
+      left. At sight of me, so gaunt and worn, my eyes wild with despair and
+      feverish from sleeplessness, a tangled growth of beard upon my hollow
+      cheeks, they uttered as with one voice a great cry of awe. The multitude
+      swayed and rippled, and then with a curious sound as that of a great wind,
+      all went down upon their knees before me&mdash;all save the array of
+      cripples huddled in the foreground, brought thither, poor wretches, in the
+      hope of a miraculous healing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I was looking round upon that assembly, my eyes were caught by a flash
+      and glitter on the road above us leading to the Cisa Pass. A little troop
+      of men-at-arms was descending that way. A score of them there would be,
+      and from their lance-heads fluttered scarlet bannerols bearing a white
+      device which at that distance I could not make out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The troop had halted, and one upon a great black horse, a man whose armour
+      shone like the sun itself, was pointing down with his mail-clad hand. Then
+      they began to move again, and the brightness of their armour, the
+      fluttering pennons on their lances, stirred me strangely in that fleeting
+      moment, ere I turned again to the faithful who knelt there waiting for my
+      words. Dolefully, with hanging head and downcast eyes, I made the dread
+      announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My children, there is yet no miracle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A deathly stillness followed the words. Then came an uproar, a clamour, a
+      wailing. One bold mountaineer thrust forward to the foremost ranks, though
+      without rising from his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;how can that be? The saint has never failed to bleed
+      by dawn on Holy Thursday, these five years past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; I groaned, &ldquo;I do not know. I but tell you what is. All night have
+      I held vigil. But all has been vain. I will go pray again, and do you,
+      too, pray.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dared not tell them of my growing suspicion and fear that the fault was
+      in myself; that here was a sign of Heaven's displeasure at the impurity of
+      the guardian of that holy place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the music!&rdquo; cried one of the cripples raucously. &ldquo;I hear the blessed
+      music!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen. We all heard it pealing
+      softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and a great cry went
+      up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry that where one miracle
+      was happening another must happen, that where the angelic choirs were
+      singing all must be well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that I had
+      seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage,
+      having turned aside from the road. At the foot of the hillock upon which
+      my hut was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to see what
+      unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;
+      then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon the bannerols
+      was the head of a white horse. By that device I knew them. They were of
+      the house of Cavalcanti&mdash;a house that had, as I had heard, been in
+      alliance and great friendship with my father. But that their coming hither
+      should have anything to do with me or with that friendship I was assured
+      was impossible. Not a single soul could know of my whereabouts or the
+      identity of the present hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair advanced, leaving the troop below to await their return, and as
+      they came I considered them, as did, too, the multitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man was of middle height, very broad and active, with long arms, to
+      one of which the little lady clung for help up the steep path. He had a
+      proud, stern aquiline face that was shaven, so that the straight lines of
+      his strong mouth and powerful length of jaw looked as if chiselled out of
+      stone. It was only at closer quarters that I observed how the general
+      hardness of that countenance was softened by the kindliness of his deep
+      brown eyes. In age I judged him to be forty, though in reality he was
+      nearer fifty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little lady at his side was the daintiest maid that I had ever seen.
+      The skin, white as a water-lily, was very gently flushed upon her cheeks;
+      the face was delicately oval; the little mouth, the tenderest in all the
+      world; the forehead low and broad, and the slightly slanting eyes&mdash;when
+      she raised the lashes that hung over them like long shadows&mdash;were of
+      the deep blue of sapphires. Her dark brown hair was coifed in a jewelled
+      net of thread of gold, and on her white neck a chain of emeralds sparkled
+      sombrely. Her close-fitting robe and her mantle were of the hue of bronze,
+      and the light shifted along the silken fabric as she moved, so that it
+      gleamed like metal. About her waist there was a girdle of hammered gold,
+      and pearls were sewn upon the back of her brown velvet gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One glance of her deep blue eyes she gave me as she approached; then she
+      lowered them instantly, and so weak&mdash;so full of worldly vanities was
+      I still that in that moment I took shame at the thought that she should
+      see me thus, in this rough hermit's habit, my face a tangle of unshorn
+      beard, my hair long and unkempt. And the shame of it dyed my gaunt cheeks.
+      And then I turned pale again, for it seemed to me that out of nowhere a
+      voice had asked me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you still marvel that the image will not bleed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So sharp and clear did those words arise from the lips of Conscience that
+      it seemed to me as if they had been uttered aloud, and I looked almost in
+      alarm to see if any other had overheard them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cavalier was standing before me, and his brows were knit, a deep
+      amazement in his eyes. Thus awhile in utter silence. Then quite suddenly,
+      his voice a ringing challenge:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name?&rdquo; quoth I, astonished by such a question, and remarking now the
+      intentness and surprise of his own glance. &ldquo;It is Sebastian,&rdquo; I answered,
+      and truthfully, for that was the name of my adoption, the name I had taken
+      when I entered upon my hermitage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sebastian of what and where?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood before me, his back to the peasant crowd, ignoring them as
+      completely as if they had no existence, supremely master of himself. And
+      meanwhile, the little lady on his arm stole furtive upward glances at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sebastian of nowhere,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Sebastian the hermit, the guardian of
+      this shrine. If you are come to...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was your name in the world?&rdquo; he interrupted impatiently, and all the
+      time his eyes were devouring my gaunt face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The name of a sinner,&rdquo; answered I. &ldquo;I have stripped it off and cast it
+      from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An expression of impatience rippled across the white face
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the name of your father?&rdquo; he insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have none,&rdquo; answered I. &ldquo;I have no kin or ties of any sort. I am
+      Sebastian the hermit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His lips smacked testily. &ldquo;Were you baptized Sebastian?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered him. &ldquo;I took the name when I became the guardian of this
+      shrine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when was that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In September of last year, when the holy man who was here before me
+      died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips. He
+      leaned towards me. &ldquo;Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?&rdquo; he
+      inquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me by
+      surprise. I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member of
+      the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so
+      intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced,
+      moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the sight
+      of that crowd of pilgrims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I know not your intentions; but in all humility let me say
+      that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import. The world has
+      done with me, and I with the world. So that unless you are come hither out
+      of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with God and molest
+      me no further. You come at a singularly inauspicious time, when I need all
+      my strength to forget the world and my sinful past, that through me the
+      will of Heaven may be done here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of great
+      compassion and sweetness whilst I spoke. I observed the pressure which she
+      put on his arm. Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was the sad
+      firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say. But he nodded
+      shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, the
+      little lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which the
+      crowd opened out for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives of piety,
+      they very plainly signified. They feared that the intrusion at such a time
+      of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficulties against the
+      performance of the expected miracle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted and
+      questioned one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage. I did not
+      hear the peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenly
+      thrown up, and I caught his next question:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did it last bleed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice&mdash;&ldquo;That would be
+      before this young hermit came? And to-day it will not bleed, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flashed me a last keen glance of his eyes, which had grown narrow and
+      seemed laden with mockery. The little lady whispered something to him, in
+      answer to which he laughed contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool's mummery,&rdquo; he snapped, and drew her on, she going, it seemed to me,
+      reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the crowd had heard him and the insult offered to the shrine. A
+      deep-throated bay rose up in menace, and some leapt to their feet as if
+      they would attack him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He checked, and wheeled at the sound. &ldquo;How now?&rdquo; he cried, his voice a
+      trumpet-call, his eyes flashing terribly upon them; and as dogs crouch to
+      heel at the angry bidding of their master, the multitude grew silent and
+      afraid under the eyes of that single steel-clad man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed a deep-throated laugh, and strode down the hill with his little
+      lady on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he had mounted and was riding off, the crowd, recovering courage
+      from his remoteness, hurled its curses after him and shrilly branded him,
+      &ldquo;Derider!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Blasphemer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rode contemptuously amain, however, looking back but once, and then to
+      laugh at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon he had dipped out of sight, and of his company nothing was visible
+      but the fluttering red pennons with the device of the white horse-head.
+      Gradually these also sank and vanished, and once more I was alone with the
+      crowd of pilgrims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enjoining prayer upon them again, I turned and re-entered the hut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE VISION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Pray as we might, night came and still the image gave no sign. The crowd
+      melted away, with promises to return at dawn&mdash;promises that sounded
+      almost like a menace in my ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was alone once more, alone with my thoughts and these made sport of me.
+      It was not only upon the unresponsiveness of St. Sebastian that my mind
+      now dwelt, nor yet upon the horrid dread that this unresponsiveness might
+      be a sign of Heaven's displeasure, an indication that as a custodian of
+      that shrine I was unacceptable through the mire of sin that still clung to
+      me. Rather, my thoughts went straying down the mountain-side in the wake
+      of that gallant company, that stern-faced man and that gentle-eyed little
+      lady who had hung upon his arm. Before the eyes of my mind there flashed
+      again the brilliance of their arms, in my ears rang the thunder of their
+      chargers' hooves, whilst the image of the girl in her shimmering,
+      bronze-hued robe remained insistently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Theirs the life that should have been mine! She such a companion as should
+      have shared my life and borne me children of my own. And I would burn with
+      shame again in memory, as I had burnt in actual fact, to think that she
+      should have beheld me in so unkempt and bedraggled a condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How must I compare in her eyes with the gay courtiers who would daily
+      hover in her presence and hang upon her gentle speech? What thought of me
+      could I hope should ever abide with her, as the image of her abode with
+      me? Or, if she thought of me at all, she must think of me just as a poor
+      hermit, a man who had donned the anchorite's sackcloth and turned his back
+      upon a world that for him was empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very easy for you worldly ones who read, to conjecture what had
+      befallen me. I was enamoured. In a meeting of eyes had the thing come to
+      me. And you will say that it is little marvel, considering the seclusion
+      of all my life and particularly that of the past few months, that the
+      first sweet maid I beheld should have wrought such havoc, and conquered my
+      heart by the mere flicker of her lashes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet so much I cannot grant your shrewdness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That meeting was predestined. It was written that she should come and tear
+      the foolish bandage from my eyes, allowing me to see for myself that, as
+      Fra Gervasio had opined, my vocation was neither for hermitage nor
+      cloister; that what called me was the world; and that in the world must I
+      find salvation since I was needed for the world's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And none but she could have done that. Of this I am persuaded, as you
+      shall be when you have read on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The yearnings with which she filled my soul were very different from those
+      inspired by the memory of Giuliana. That other sinful longing, she
+      entirely effaced at last, thereby achieving something that had been
+      impossible to prayers and fasting, to scourge and cilice. I longed for her
+      almost beatifically, as those whose natures are truly saintly long for the
+      presence of the blessed ones of Heaven. By the sight of her I was purified
+      and sanctified, washed clean of all that murk of sinful desire in which I
+      had lain despite myself; for my desire of her was the blessed, noble
+      desire to serve, to guard, to cherish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pure was she as the pale narcissus by the streams, and serving her what
+      could I be but pure?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, quite suddenly, upon the heels of such thoughts came the
+      reaction. Horror and revulsion were upon me. This was but a fresh snare of
+      Satan's baiting to lure me to destruction. Where the memory of Giuliana
+      had failed to move me to aught but penance and increasing rigours, the
+      foul fiend sought to engage me with a seeming purity to my ultimate
+      destruction. Thus had Anthony, the Egyptian monk, been tempted; and under
+      one guise or another it was ever the same Circean lure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would make an end. I swore it in a mighty frenzy of repentance, in a
+      very lust to do battle with Satan and with my own flesh and a phrenetic
+      joy to engage in the awful combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stripped off my ragged habit, and standing naked I took up my scourge of
+      eglantine and beat myself until the blood flowed freely. But that was not
+      enough. All naked as I was, I went forth into the blue night, and ran to a
+      pool of the Bagnanza, going of intent through thickets of bramble and
+      briar-rose that gripped and tore my flesh and lacerated me so that at
+      times I screamed aloud in pain, to laugh ecstatically the next moment and
+      joyfully taunt Satan with his defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus I tore on, my very body ragged and bleeding from head to foot, and
+      thus I came to the pool in the torrent's course. Into this I plunged, and
+      stood with the icy waters almost to my neck, to purge the unholy fevers
+      out of me. The snows above were melting at the time, and the pool was
+      little more than liquid ice. The chill of it struck through me to the very
+      marrow, and I felt my flesh creep and contract until it seemed like the
+      rough hide of some fabled monster, and my wounds stung as if fire were
+      being poured into them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus awhile; then all feeling passed, and a complete insensibility to the
+      cold of the water or the fire of the wounds succeeded. All was numbed, and
+      every nerve asleep. At last I had conquered. I laughed aloud, and in a
+      great voice of triumph I shouted so that the shout went echoing round the
+      hills in the stillness of the night:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satan, thou art defeated!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And upon that I crawled up the mossy bank, the water gliding from my long
+      limbs. I attempted to stand. But the earth rocked under my feet; the
+      blueness of the night deepened into black, and consciousness was
+      extinguished like a candle that is blown out.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      She appeared above me in a great effulgence that emanated from herself as
+      if she were grown luminous. Her robe was of cloth of silver and of a
+      dazzling sheen, and it hung closely to her lissom, virginal form, defining
+      every line and curve of it; and by the chaste beauty of her I was moved to
+      purest ecstasy of awe and worship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale, oval face was infinitely sweet, the slanting eyes of heavenly
+      blue were infinitely tender, the brown hair was plaited into two long
+      tresses that hung forward upon either breast and were entwined with
+      threads of gold and shimmering jewels. On the pale brow a brilliant glowed
+      with pure white fires, and her hands were held out to me in welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her lips parted to breathe my name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino d'Anguissola!&rdquo; There were whole tomes of tender meaning in those
+      syllables, so that hearing her utter them I seemed to learn all that was
+      in her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then her shining whiteness suggested to me the name that must be hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bianca!&rdquo; I cried, and in my turn held out my arms and made as if to
+      advance towards her. But I was held back in icy, clinging bonds, whose
+      relentlessness drew from me a groan of misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino, I am waiting for you at Pagliano,&rdquo; she said, and it did not
+      occur to me to wonder where might be this Pagliano of which I could not
+      remember ever to have heard. &ldquo;Come to me soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may not come,&rdquo; I answered miserably. &ldquo;I am an anchorite, the guardian
+      of a shrine; and my life that has been full of sin must be given
+      henceforth to expiation. It is the will of Heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled all undismayed, smiled confidently and tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presumptuous!&rdquo; she gently chid me. &ldquo;What know you of the will of Heaven?
+      The will of Heaven is inscrutable. If you have sinned in the world, in the
+      world must you atone by deeds that shall serve the world&mdash;God's
+      world. In your hermitage you are become barren soil that will yield naught
+      to yourself or any. Come then from the wilderness. Come soon! I am
+      waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And on that the splendid vision faded, and utter darkness once more
+      encompassed me, a darkness through which still boomed repeatedly the
+      fading echo of the words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come soon! I am waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I lay upon my bed of wattles in the hut, and through the little unglazed
+      windows the sun was pouring, but the dripping eaves told of rain that had
+      lately ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over me was bending a kindly faced old man in whom I recognized the good
+      priest of Casi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I lay quite still for a long while, just gazing up at him. Soon my memory
+      got to work of its own accord, and I bethought me of the pilgrims who must
+      by now have come and who must be impatiently awaiting news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How came I to have slept so long? Vaguely I remembered my last night's
+      penance, and then came a black gulf in my memory, a gap I could not
+      bridge. But uppermost leapt the anxieties concerning the image of St.
+      Sebastian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I struggled up to discover that I was very weak; so weak that I was glad
+      to sink back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it bleed? Does it bleed yet?&rdquo; I asked, and my voice was so small and
+      feeble that the sound of it startled me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old priest shook his head, and his eyes were very full of compassion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor youth, poor youth!&rdquo; he sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without all was silent; there was no such rustle of a multitude as I
+      listened for. And then I observed in my cell a little shepherd-lad who had
+      been wont to come that way for my blessing upon occasions. He was half
+      naked, as lithe as a snake and almost as brown. What did he there? And
+      then someone else stirred&mdash;an elderly peasant-woman with a wrinkled
+      kindly face and soft dark eyes, whom I did not know at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somehow, as my mind grew clearer, last night seemed ages remote. I looked
+      at the priest again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; I murmured, &ldquo;what has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer amazed me. He started violently. Looked more closely, and
+      suddenly cried out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows me! He knows me! Deo gratias!&rdquo; And he fell upon his knees
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now here it seemed to me was a sort of madness. &ldquo;Why should I not know
+      you?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman peered at me. &ldquo;Ay, blessed be Heaven! He is awake at last,
+      and himself again.&rdquo; She turned to the lad, who was staring at me,
+      grinning. &ldquo;Go tell them, Beppo! Haste!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell them?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;The pilgrims? Ah, no, no&mdash;not unless the
+      miracle has come to pass!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no pilgrims here, my son,&rdquo; said the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not?&rdquo; I cried, and cold horror descended upon me. &ldquo;But they should have
+      come. This is Holy Friday, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, my son, Holy Friday was a fortnight ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared askance at him, in utter silence. Then I smiled half tolerantly.
+      &ldquo;But father, yesterday they were all here. Yesterday was...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your yesterday, my son, is sped these fifteen days,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;All
+      that long while, since the night you wrestled with the Devil, you have
+      lain exhausted by that awful combat, lying there betwixt life and death.
+      All that time we have watched by you, Leocadia here and I and the lad
+      Beppo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now here was news that left me speechless for some little while. My
+      amazement and slow understanding were spurred on by a sight of my hands
+      lying on the rude coverlet which had been flung over me. Emaciated they
+      had been for some months now. But at present they were as white as snow
+      and almost as translucent in their extraordinary frailty. I became
+      increasingly conscious, too, of the great weakness of my body and the
+      great lassitude that filled me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I had the fever?&rdquo; I asked him presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, my son. And who would not? Blessed Virgin! who would not after what
+      you underwent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now he poured into my astonished ears the amazing story that had
+      overrun the country-side. It would seem that my cry in the night, my
+      exultant cry to Satan that I had defeated him, had been overheard by a
+      goatherd who guarded his flock in the hills. In the stillness he
+      distinctly heard the words that I had uttered, and he came trembling down,
+      drawn by a sort of pious curiosity to the spot whence it had seemed to him
+      that the cry had proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there by a pool of the Bagnanza he had found me lying prone, my white
+      body glistening like marble and almost as cold. Recognizing in me the
+      anchorite of Monte Orsaro, he had taken me up in his strong arms and had
+      carried me back to my hut. There he had set about reviving me by friction
+      and by forcing between my teeth some of the grape-spirit that he carried
+      in a gourd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finding that I lived, but that he could not arouse me and that my icy
+      coldness was succeeded by the fire of fever, he had covered me with my
+      habit and his own cloak, and had gone down to Casi to fetch the priest and
+      relate his story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This story was no less than that the hermit of Monte Orsaro had been
+      fighting with the devil, who had dragged him naked from his hut and had
+      sought to hurl him into the torrent; but that on the very edge of the
+      river the anchorite had found strength, by the grace of God, to overthrow
+      the tormentor and to render him powerless; and in proof of it there was my
+      body all covered with Satan's claw-marks by which I had been torn most
+      cruelly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest had come at once, bringing with him such restoratives as he
+      needed, and it is a thousand mercies that he did not bring a leech, or
+      else I might have been bled of the last drops remaining in my shrunken
+      veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And meanwhile the goatherd's story had gone abroad. By morning it was on
+      the lips of all the country-side, so that explanations were not lacking to
+      account for St. Sebastian's refusal to perform the usual miracle, and no
+      miracle was expected&mdash;nor had the image yielded any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest was mistaken. A miracle there had been. But for what had
+      chanced, the multitude must have come again confidently expecting the
+      bleeding of the image which had never failed in five years, and had the
+      image not bled it must have fared ill with the guardian of the shrine. In
+      punishment for his sacrilegious ministry which must be held responsible
+      for the absence of the miracle they so eagerly awaited, well might the
+      crowd have torn me limb from limb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next the old man went on to tell me how three days ago there had come to
+      the hermitage a little troop of men-at-arms, led by a tall, bearded man
+      whose device was a sable band upon an argent field, and accompanied by a
+      friar of the order of St. Francis, a tall, gaunt fellow who had wept at
+      sight of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be Fra Gervasio!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;How came he to discover me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;Fra Gervasio is his name,&rdquo; replied the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In that moment I caught the sound of approaching steps. The door opened,
+      and before me stood the tall figure of my best friend, his eyes all
+      eagerness, his pale face flushed with joyous excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled my welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino! Agostino!&rdquo; he cried, and ran to kneel beside me and take my
+      hand in his. &ldquo;O, blessed be God!&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the doorway stood now another man, who had followed him&mdash;one whose
+      face I had seen somewhere yet could not at first remember where. He was
+      very tall, so that he was forced to stoop to avoid the lintel of the low
+      door&mdash;as tall as Gervasio or myself&mdash;and the tanned face was
+      bearded by a heavy brown beard in which a few strands of grey were
+      showing. Across his face there ran the hideous livid scar of a blow that
+      must have crushed the bridge of his nose. It began just under the left
+      eye, and crossed the face downwards until it was lost in the beard on the
+      right side almost in line with the mouth. Yet, notwithstanding that
+      disfigurement, he still possessed a certain beauty, and the deep-set,
+      clear, grey-blue eyes were the eyes of a brave and kindly man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wore a leather jerkin and great thigh-boots of grey leather, and from
+      his girdle of hammered steel hung a dagger and the empty carriages of a
+      sword. His cropped black head was bare, and in his hand he carried a cap
+      of black velvet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We looked at each other awhile, and his eyes were sad and wistful, laden
+      with pity, as I thought, for my condition. Then he moved forward with a
+      creak of leather and jingle of spurs that made pleasant music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He set a hand upon the shoulder of the kneeling Gervasio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will live now, Gervasio?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, he will live,&rdquo; answered the friar with an almost fierce satisfaction
+      in his positive assurance. &ldquo;He will live and in a week we can move him
+      hence. Meanwhile he must be nourished.&rdquo; He rose. &ldquo;My good Leocadia, have
+      you the broth? Come, then, let us build up this strength of his. There is
+      haste, good soul; great haste!&rdquo; She bustled at his bidding, and soon
+      outside the door there was a crackling of twigs to announce the lighting
+      of a fire. And then Gervasio made known to me the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Galeotto,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was your father's friend, and would be
+      yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I could not desire otherwise with any who was my father's
+      friend. You are not, perchance, the Gran Galeotto?&rdquo; I inquired,
+      remembering the sable device on argent of which the priest had told me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am that same,&rdquo; he answered, and I looked with interest upon one whose
+      name had been ringing through Italy these last few years. And then, I
+      suddenly realized why his face was familiar to me. This was the man who in
+      a monkish robe had stared so insistently at me that day at Mondolfo five
+      years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a sort of outlaw, a remnant of the days of chivalry and
+      free-lances, whose sword was at the disposal of any purchaser. He rode at
+      the head of a last fragment of the famous company that Giovanni de' Medici
+      had raised and captained until his death. The sable band which they
+      adopted in mourning for that warrior, earned for their founder the
+      posthumous title of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was called Il Gran Galeotto (as another was called Il Gran Diavolo) in
+      play upon the name he bore and the life he followed. He had been in bad
+      odour with the Pope for his sometime association with my father, and he
+      was not well-viewed in the Pontifical domains until, as I was soon to
+      learn, he had patched up a sort of peace with Pier Luigi Farnese, who
+      thought that the day might come when he should need the support of
+      Galeotto's free-lances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;your father's closest friend. I took this at Perugia,
+      where he fell,&rdquo; he added, and pointed to his terrific scar. Then he
+      laughed. &ldquo;I wear it gladly in memory of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Gervasio, smiling. &ldquo;I hope that Giovanni d'Anguissola's son
+      will hold me in some affection for his father's sake, when he shall come
+      to know me better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;from my heart I thank you for that pious, kindly wish; and
+      I would that I might fully correspond to it. But Agostino d'Anguissola,
+      who has been so near to death in the body, is, indeed, dead to the world
+      already. Here you see but a poor hermit named Sebastian, who is the
+      guardian of this shrine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervasio rose suddenly. &ldquo;This shrine...&rdquo; he began in a fierce voice, his
+      face inflamed as with sudden wrath. And there he stopped short. The priest
+      was staring at him, and through the open door came Leocadia with a bowl of
+      steaming broth. &ldquo;We'll talk of this again,&rdquo; he said, and there was a sort
+      of thunder rumbling in the promise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE ICONOCLAST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a week later before we returned to the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, the good priest of Casi and Leocadia had departed, bearing with
+      them a princely reward from the silent, kindly eyed Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To tend me there remained only the boy Beppo; and after my long six months
+      of lenten fare there followed now a period of feasting that began to
+      trouble me as my strength returned. When, finally, on the seventh day, I
+      was able to stand, and, by leaning on Gervasio's arm, to reach the door of
+      the hut and to look out upon the sweet spring landscape and the green
+      tents that Galeotto's followers had pitched for themselves in the dell
+      below my platform, I vowed that I would make an end of broths and capons'
+      breasts and trout and white bread and red wine and all such succulences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There has been enough of this, Agostino,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You have gone near
+      your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had been damned&mdash;deserving
+      it for your folly if for naught else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him with surprise and reproach. &ldquo;How, Fra Gervasio?&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales of
+      fights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's claws upon
+      your body? Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foul
+      impostures of this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth of
+      the country-side?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foul impostures?&rdquo; I echoed, aghast. &ldquo;Fra Gervasio, your words are
+      sacrilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sacrilege?&rdquo; he cried, and laughed bitterly. &ldquo;Sacrilege? And what of
+      that?&rdquo; And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.
+      Sebastian in its niche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think because it did not bleed...&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It did not bleed,&rdquo; he cut in, &ldquo;because you are not a knave. That is the
+      only reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue. He was
+      no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy things,
+      battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black villain who
+      is dead&mdash;dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when the end
+      took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money that he had
+      extorted by his simonies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?&rdquo; he asked
+      me sharply. &ldquo;Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath
+      that you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and had
+      vanished in the night&mdash;carried off by the Devil, or borne away to
+      realms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door to
+      do the office of a stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he gave alms!&rdquo; I cried, my senses all bewildered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image&mdash;&rdquo; his
+      scorn became tremendous&mdash;&ldquo;is an impious fraud, Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man be
+      so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that without
+      fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your notions of God are heathen notions,&rdquo; he said more quietly. &ldquo;You
+      confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His
+      lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet&mdash;reflect! Consider
+      the manner in which that brigand met his death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But... but...&rdquo; I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short,
+      and listened. &ldquo;Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear it? Hear what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The music&mdash;the angelic melodies! And you can say that this place is
+      a foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud! And you a priest!
+      Listen! It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Angelic melodies!&rdquo; he echoed with gentlest scorn. &ldquo;By what snares does
+      the Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose! That,
+      boy&mdash;that is no more than the dripping of water into little wells of
+      different depths, producing different notes. It is in there, in some cave
+      in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that my
+      senses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion. &ldquo;The proof of that? The
+      proof!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or while the
+      river was swollen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That answer shattered my last illusion. I looked back upon the time I had
+      spent there, upon the despair that had beset me when the music ceased,
+      upon the joy that had been mine when again I heard it, accepting it always
+      as a sign of grace. And it was as he said. Not my unworthiness, but the
+      rain, had ever silenced it. In memory I ran over the occasions, and so
+      clearly did I perceive the truth of this, that I marvelled the coincidence
+      should not earlier have discovered it to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, now that my illusions concerning it were gone, the sound was
+      clearly no more than he had said. I recognized its nature. It might have
+      intrigued a sane man for a day or a night. But it could never longer have
+      deceived any but one whose mind was become fevered with fanatic ecstasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I looked again at the image in the niche, and the pendulum of my
+      faith was suddenly checked in its counter-swing. About that image there
+      could be no delusions. The whole country-side had witnessed the miracle of
+      the bleeding, and it had wrought cures, wondrous cures, among the
+      faithful. They could not all have been deceived. Besides, from the wounds
+      in the breast there were still the brown signs of the last manifestation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when I had given some utterance to these thoughts Gervasio for only
+      answer stooped and picked up a wood-man's axe that stood against the wall.
+      With this he went straight towards the image.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fra Gervasio!&rdquo; I cried, leaping to my feet, a premonition of what he was
+      about turning me cold with horror. &ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; I almost screamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But too late. My answer was a crashing blow. The next instant, as I sank
+      back to my seat and covered my face, the two halves of the image fell at
+      my feet, flung there by the friar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look!&rdquo; he bade me in a roar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearfully I looked. I saw. And yet I could not believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came quickly back, and picked up the two halves. &ldquo;The oracle of Delphi
+      was not more impudently worked,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Observe this sponge, these
+      plates of metal that close down upon it and exert the pressure necessary
+      to send the liquid with which it is laden oozing forth.&rdquo; As he spoke he
+      tore out the fiendish mechanism. &ldquo;And see now how ingeniously it was made
+      to work&mdash;by pressure upon this arrow in the flank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a burst of laughter from the door. I looked up, startled, to
+      find Galeotto standing at my elbow. So engrossed had I been that I had
+      never heard his soft approach over the turf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Body of Bacchus!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Here is Gervasio become an image breaker to
+      some purpose. What now of your miraculous saint, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My answer was first a groan over my shattered illusion, and then a
+      deep-throated curse at the folly that had made a mock of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The friar set a hand upon my shoulder. &ldquo;You see, Agostino, that your
+      excursions into holy things do not promise well. Away with you, boy! Off
+      with this hypocrite robe, and get you out into the world to do useful work
+      for God and man. Had your heart truly called you to the priesthood, I had
+      been the first to have guided your steps thither. But your mind upon such
+      matters has been warped, and your views are all false; you confound
+      mysticism with true religion, and mouldering in a hermitage with the
+      service of God. How can you serve God here? Is not the world God's world
+      that you must shun it as if the Devil had fashioned it? Go, I say&mdash;and
+      I say it with the authority of the orders that I bear&mdash;go and serve
+      man, and thus shall you best serve God. All else are but snares to such a
+      nature as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him helplessly, and from him to Galeotto who stood there, his
+      black brows knit; watching me with intentness as if great issues hung upon
+      my answer. And Gervasio's words touched in my mind some chord of memory.
+      They were words that I had heard before&mdash;or something very like them,
+      something whose import was the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I groaned miserably and took my head in my hands. &ldquo;Whither am I to
+      go?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What place is there in all the world for me? I am an
+      outcast. My very home is held against me. Whither, then, shall I go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is all that troubles you,&rdquo; said Galeotto, his tone unctuously
+      humorous, &ldquo;why we will ride to Pagliano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I leapt at the word&mdash;literally leapt to my feet, and stared at him
+      with blazing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what ails him now?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well might he ask. That name&mdash;Pagliano&mdash;had stirred my memory so
+      violently, that of a sudden as in a flash I had seen again the strange
+      vision that visited my delirium; I had seen again the inviting eyes, the
+      beckoning hands, and heard again the gentle voice saying, &ldquo;Come to
+      Pagliano! Come soon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now I knew, too, where I had heard words urging my return to the world
+      that were of the same import as those which Gervasio used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What magic was there here? What wizardry was at play? I knew&mdash;for
+      they had told me&mdash;that it had been that cavalier who had visited me,
+      that man whose name was Ettore de' Cavalcanti, who had borne news to them
+      of one who was strangely like what Giovanni d'Anguissola had been. But
+      Pagliano had never yet been mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Pagliano?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Lombardy&mdash;in the Milanes,&rdquo; replied Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the home of Cavalcanti.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are faint, Agostino,&rdquo; cried Gervasio, with a sudden solicitude, and
+      put an arm about my shoulders as I staggered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is nothing. Tell me&mdash;&rdquo; And I paused almost
+      afraid to put the question, lest the answer should dash my sudden hope.
+      For it seemed to me that in this place of false miracles, one true miracle
+      at least had been wrought; if it should be proved so indeed, then would I
+      accept it as a sign that my salvation lay indeed in the world. If not...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; I began again; &ldquo;this Cavalcanti has a daughter. She was with
+      him upon that day when he came here. What is her name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at me out of narrowing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what has that to do with anything?&rdquo; quoth Gervasio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than you think. Answer me, then. What is her name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her name is Bianca,&rdquo; said Caleotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something within me seemed to give way, so that I fell to laughing
+      foolishly as women laugh who are on the verge of tears. By an effort I
+      regained my self-control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very well,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I will ride with you to Pagliano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both stared at me in utter amazement at the suddenness of my consent
+      following upon information that, in their minds, could have no possible
+      bearing upon the matter at issue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he quite sane, do you think?&rdquo; cried Galeotto gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he has just become so,&rdquo; said Fra Gervasio after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God give me patience, then,&rdquo; grumbled the soldier, and left me puzzled by
+      the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK IV. THE WORLD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. PAGLIANO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The lilac was in bloom when we came to the grey walls of Pagliano in that
+      May of '45, and its scent, arousing the memory of my return to the world,
+      has ever since been to me symbolical of the world itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mine was no half-hearted, backward-glancing return. Having determined upon
+      the step, I took it resolutely and completely at a single stride. Since
+      Galeotto placed his resources at my disposal, to be repaid him later when
+      I should have entered upon the enjoyment of my heritage of Mondolfo, I did
+      not scruple to draw upon them for my needs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I accepted the fine linen and noble raiment that he offered, and I took
+      pleasure in the brave appearance that I made in them, my face shorn now of
+      its beard and my hair trimmed to a proper length. Similarly I accepted
+      weapons, money, and a horse; and thus equipped, looking for the first time
+      in my life like a patrician of my own lofty station, I rode forth from
+      Monte Orsaro with Galeotto and Gervasio, attended by the former's troop of
+      twenty lances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from the moment of our setting out there came upon me a curious peace,
+      a happiness and a great sense of expectancy. No longer was I oppressed by
+      the fear of proving unworthy of the life which I had chosen&mdash;as had
+      been the case when that life had been monastic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto was in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with
+      pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of
+      my father ere all was done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first act of my new life was performed as we were passing through the
+      village of Pojetta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called a halt before the doors of that mean hostelry, over which hung
+      what no doubt would still be the same withered bunch of rosemary that had
+      been there in autumn when last I went that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the sloe-eyed, deep-bosomed girl who lounged against the door-post to
+      see so fine a company ride by, I gave an order to fetch the taverner. He
+      came with a slouch, a bent back, and humble, timid eyes&mdash;a very
+      different attitude from that which he had last adopted towards me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my mule, you rogue?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me askance. &ldquo;Your mule, magnificent? said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have forgotten me, I think&mdash;forgotten the lad in rusty black who
+      rode this way last autumn and whom you robbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the words be turned a sickly yellow, and fell to trembling and babbling
+      protestations and excuses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have done,&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;You would not buy the mule then. You shall buy
+      it now, and pay for it with interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is this, Agostino?&rdquo; quoth Galeotto at my elbow. &ldquo;An act of justice,
+      sir,&rdquo; I answered shortly, whereupon he questioned me no further, but
+      looked on with a grim smile. Then to the taverner, &ldquo;Your manners to-day
+      are not quite the same as on the last occasion when we met. I spare you
+      the gallows that you may live to profit by the lesson of your present near
+      escape. And now, rogue, ten ducats for that mule.&rdquo; And I held out my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten ducats!&rdquo; he cried, and gathering courage perhaps since he was not to
+      hang. &ldquo;It is twice the value of the beast,&rdquo; he protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It will be five ducats for the mule, and five for your
+      life. I am merciful to rate the latter as cheaply as it deserves. Come,
+      thief, the ten ducats without more ado, or I'll burn your nest of infamy
+      and hang you above the ruins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cowered and shrivelled. Then he scuttled within doors to fetch the
+      money, whilst Galeotto laughed deep in his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are well-advised,&rdquo; said I, when the rogue returned and handed me the
+      ducats. &ldquo;I told you I should come back to present my reckoning. Be warned
+      by this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we rode on Galeotto laughed again. &ldquo;Body of Satan! There is a
+      thoroughness about you, Agustino. As a hermit you did not spare yourself;
+      and now as a tyrant you do not seem likely to spare others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the Anguissola way,&rdquo; said Gervasio quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I conceive myself in the world for some good
+      purpose, and the act you have witnessed is a part of it. It was not a
+      revengeful deed. Vengeance would have taken a harsher course. It was
+      justice, and justice is righteous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Particularly a justice that puts ten ducats in your pocket,&rdquo; laughed
+      Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, again, you mistake me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;My aim is that thieves be mulcted
+      to the end that the poor shall profit.&rdquo; And I drew rein again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little crowd had gathered about us, mostly of very ragged, half-clad
+      people, for this village of Pojetta was a very poverty-stricken place.
+      Into that little crowd I flung the ten ducats&mdash;with the consequence
+      that on the instant it became a seething, howling, snarling, quarrelling
+      mass. In the twinkling of an eye a couple of heads were cracked and blood
+      was flowing, so that to quell the riot my charity had provoked, I was
+      forced to spur my horse forward and bid them with threats disperse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I think now,&rdquo; said Galeotto when it was done, &ldquo;that you are just as
+      reckless in the manner of doing charity. For the future, Agostino, you
+      would do well to appoint an almoner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I bit my lip in vexation; but soon I smiled again. Were such little things
+      to fret me? Did we not ride to Pagliano and to Bianca de' Cavalcanti? At
+      the very thought my pulses would quicken, and a sweetness of anticipation
+      would invade my soul, to be clouded at moments by an indefinable dread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus we came to Pagliano in that month of May, when the lilac was in
+      bloom, as I have said, and after Fra Gervasio had left us, to return to
+      his convent at Piacenza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were received in the courtyard of that mighty fortress by that sturdy,
+      hawk-faced man who had recognized me in the hermitage on Monte Orsaro. But
+      he was no longer in armour. He wore a surcoat of yellow velvet, and his
+      eyes were very kindly and affectionate when they rested on Galeotto and
+      from Galeotto passed on to take survey of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So this is our hermit!&rdquo; quoth he, a note of some surprise in his crisp
+      tones. &ldquo;Somewhat changed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By a change that goes deeper than his pretty doublet,&rdquo; said Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We dismounted, and grooms, in the Cavalcanti livery of scarlet with the
+      horse-head in white upon their breasts, led away our horses. The seneschal
+      acted as quarter-master to our lances, whilst Cavalcanti himself led us up
+      the great stone staircase with its carved balustrade of marble, from which
+      rose a file of pillars to support the groined ceiling. This last was
+      frescoed in dull red with the white horse-head at intervals. On our right,
+      on every third step, stood orange-trees in tubs, all flowering and
+      shedding the most fragrant perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we ascended to a spacious gallery, and through a succession of
+      magnificent rooms we came to the noble apartments that had been made ready
+      for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A couple of pages came to tend me, bringing perfumed water and macerated
+      herbs for my ablutions. These performed, they helped me into fresh
+      garments that awaited me&mdash;black hose of finest silk and velvet trunks
+      of the same sable hue, and for my body a fine close-fitting doublet of
+      cloth of gold, caught at the waist by a jewelled girdle from which hung a
+      dagger that was the merest toy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I was ready they went before me, to lead the way to what they called
+      the private dining-room, where supper awaited us. At the very mention of a
+      private dining-room I had a vision of whitewashed walls and high-set
+      windows and a floor strewn with rushes. Instead we came into the most
+      beautiful chamber that I had ever seen. From floor to ceiling it was hung
+      with arras of purple brocade alternating with cloth of gold; thus on three
+      sides. On the fourth there was an opening for the embayed window which
+      glowed like a gigantic sapphire in the deepening twilight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor was spread with a carpet of the ruddy purple of porphyry, very
+      soft and silent to the feet. From the frescoed ceiling, where a joyous
+      Phoebus drove a team of spirited white stallions, hung a chain that was
+      carved in the semblance of interlocked Titans to support a great
+      candelabrum, each branch of which was in the image of a Titan holding a
+      stout candle of scented wax. It was all in gilded bronze and the
+      workmanship&mdash;as I was presently to learn&mdash;of that great artist
+      and rogue Benvenuto Cellini. From this candelabrum there fell upon the
+      board a soft golden radiance that struck bright gleams from crystals and
+      plate of gold and silver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By a buffet laden with meats stood the master of the household in black
+      velvet, his chain of office richly carved, his badge a horse's head in
+      silver, and he was flanked on either hand by a nimble-looking page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all this my first glance gathered but the most fleeting of impressions.
+      For my eyes were instantly arrested by her who stood between Cavalcanti
+      and Galeotto, awaiting my arrival. And, miracle of miracles, she was
+      arrayed exactly as I had seen her in my vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her supple maiden body was sheathed in a gown of cloth of silver; her
+      brown hair was dressed into two plaits interlaced with gold threads and
+      set with tiny gems, and these plaits hung one on either breast. Upon the
+      low, white brow a single jewel gleamed&mdash;a brilliant of the very
+      whitest fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her long blue eyes were raised to look at me as I entered, and their
+      glance grew startled when it encountered mine, the delicate colour faded
+      gradually from her cheeks, and her eyes fell at last as she moved forward
+      to bid me welcome to Pagliano in her own name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They must have perceived her emotion as they perceived mine. But they gave
+      no sign. We got to the round table&mdash;myself upon Cavalcanti's left,
+      Galeotto in the place of honour, and Bianca facing her father so that I
+      was on her right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The seneschal bestirred himself, and the silken ministering pages
+      fluttered round us. My Lord of Pagliano was one who kept a table as
+      luxurious as all else in his splendid palace. First came a broth of veal
+      in silver basins, then a stew of cocks' combs and capons' breasts, then
+      the ham of a roasted boar, the flesh very lusciously saturated with the
+      flavour of rosemary; and there was venison that was as soft as velvet, and
+      other things that I no longer call to mind. And to drink there was a
+      fragrant, well-sunned wine of Lombardy that had been cooled in snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto ate enormously, Cavalcanti daintily, I but little, and Bianca
+      nothing. Her presence had set up such emotions in me that I had no thought
+      for food. But I drank deeply, and so came presently to a spurious ease
+      which enabled me to take my share in the talk that was toward, though when
+      all is said it was but a slight share, since Cavalcanti and Galeotto
+      discoursed of matters wherein my knowledge was not sufficient to enable me
+      to bear a conspicuous part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than once I was on the point of addressing Bianca herself, but always
+      courage failed me. I had ever in mind the memory she must have of me as
+      she had last seen me, to increase the painful diffidence which her
+      presence itself imposed upon me. Nor did I hear her voice more than once
+      or twice when she demurely answered such questions as her father set her.
+      And though once or twice I found her stealing a look at me, she would
+      instantly avert her eyes when our glances crossed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus was our first meeting, and for a little time it was to be our last,
+      because I lacked the courage to seek her out. She had her own apartments
+      at Pagliano with her own maids of honour, like a princess; and the castle
+      garden was entirely her domain into which even her father seldom intruded.
+      He gave me the freedom of it; but it was a freedom of which I never took
+      advantage in the week that we abode there. Several times was I on the
+      point of doing so. But I was ever restrained by my unconquerable
+      diffidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there was something else to impose restraint upon me. Hitherto the
+      memory of Giuliana had come to haunt me in my hermitage, by arousing in me
+      yearnings which I had to combat with fasting and prayer, with scourge and
+      dice. Now the memory of her haunted me again; but in a vastly different
+      way. It haunted me with the reminder of all the sin in which through her I
+      had steeped myself; and just as the memory of that sin had made me in
+      purer moments deem myself unworthy to be the guardian of the shrine on
+      Monte Orsaro, so now did it cause me to deem myself all unworthy to enter
+      the garden that enshrined Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the purity that shone from her I recoiled in an awe whose nature
+      was as the feelings of a religion. I felt that to seek her presence would
+      be almost to defile her. And so I abstained, my mind very full of her the
+      while, for all that the time was beguiled for me in daily exercise with
+      horse and arms under the guidance of Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not so tutored merely for the sake of repairing a grave omission in
+      my education. It had a definite scope, as Galeotto frankly told me,
+      informing me that the time approached in which to avenge my father and
+      strike a blow for my own rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then at the end of a week a man rode into the courtyard of Pagliano
+      one day, and flung down from his horse shouting to be led to Messer
+      Galeotto. There was something about this courier's mien and person that
+      awoke a poignant memory. I was walking in the gallery when the clatter of
+      his advent drew my attention, and his voice sent a strange thrill through
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One glance I gave to make quite sure, and then I leapt down the broad
+      steps four at a time, and a moment later, to the amazement of all present,
+      I had caught the dusty rider in my arms, and I was kissing the wrinkled,
+      scarred, and leathery old cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Falcone!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Falcone, do you not know me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was startled by the violence of my passionate onslaught. Indeed, he was
+      almost borne to the ground by it, for his old legs were stiff now from
+      riding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then&mdash;how he stared! What oaths he swore!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonnino!&rdquo; he babbled. &ldquo;Madonnino!&rdquo; And he shook himself free of my
+      embrace, and stood back that he might view me. &ldquo;Body of Satan! But you are
+      finely grown, and how like to what your father was when he was no older
+      than are you! And they have not made a shaveling of you, after all. Now
+      blessed be God for that!&rdquo; Then he stopped short, and his eyes went past
+      me, and he seemed to hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned, and there, leaning on the balustrade of the staircase, looking
+      on with smiling eyes stood Galeotto with Messer Cavalcanti at his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard Galeotto's words to the Lord of Pagliano. &ldquo;His heart is sound&mdash;which
+      is a miracle. That woman, it seems, could not quite dehumanize him.&rdquo; And
+      he came down heavily, to ask Falcone what news he bore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old equerry drew a letter from under his leathern jacket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Ferrante?&rdquo; quoth the Lord of Pagliano eagerly, peering over
+      Galeotto's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Galeotto, and he broke the seal. He stood to read, with knitted
+      brows. &ldquo;It is well,&rdquo; he said, at last, and passed the sheet to Cavalcanti.
+      &ldquo;Farnese is in Piacenza already, and the Pope will sway the College to
+      give his bastard the ducal crown. It is time we stirred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Falcone, whilst Cavalcanti read the letter. &ldquo;Take food and
+      rest, good Gino. For to-morrow you ride again with me. And so shall you,
+      Agostino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ride again?&rdquo; I echoed, my heart sinking and some of my dismay showing
+      upon my face. &ldquo;Whither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To right the wrongs of Mondolfo,&rdquo; he answered shortly, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We rode again upon the morrow as he had said, and with us went Falcone and
+      the same goodly company of twenty lances that had escorted me from Monte
+      Orsaro. But I took little thought for them or pride in such an escort now.
+      My heart was leaden. I had not seen Bianca again ere I departed, and
+      Heaven knew when we should return to Pagliano. Thus at least was I
+      answered by Galeotto when I made bold to ask the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days we rode, going by easy stages, and came at last upon that
+      wondrously fair and imposing city of Milan, in the very heart of the vast
+      plain of Lombardy with the distant Alps for background and northern
+      rampart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our destination was the castle; and in a splendid ante-chamber, packed
+      with rustling, silken courtiers and clanking captains in steel, a
+      sprinkling of prelates and handsome, insolent-eyed women, more than one of
+      whom reminded me of Giuliana, and every one of whom I disparaged by
+      comparing her with Bianca, Galeotto and I stood waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To many there he seemed known, and several came to greet him and some to
+      whisper in his ear. At last a pert boy in a satin suit that was striped in
+      the Imperial livery of black and yellow, pushed his way through the
+      throng.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Messer Galeotto,&rdquo; his shrill voice announced, &ldquo;his excellency awaits
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto took my arm, and drew me forward with him. Thus we went through a
+      lane that opened out before us in that courtly throng, and came to a
+      curtained door. An usher raised the curtain for us at a sign from the
+      page, who, opening, announced us to the personage within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood in a small closet, whose tall, slender windows overlooked the
+      courtyard, and from the table, on which there was a wealth of parchments,
+      rose a very courtly gentleman to receive us out of a gilded chair, the
+      arms of which were curiously carved into the shape of serpents' heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a well-nourished, florid man of middle height, with a resolute
+      mouth, high cheek-bones, and crafty, prominent eyes that reminded me
+      vaguely of the eyes of the taverner of Pojetta. He was splendidly dressed
+      in a long gown of crimson damask edged with lynx fur, and the fingers of
+      his fat hands and one of his thumbs were burdened with jewels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Ferrante Gonzaga, Prince of Molfetta, Duke of Ariano, the
+      Emperor's Lieutenant and Governor of the State of Milan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smile with which he had been ready to greet Galeotto froze slightly at
+      sight of me. But before he could voice the question obviously in his mind
+      my companion had presented me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, my lord, is one upon whom I trust that we may count when the time
+      comes. This is Agostino d'Anguissola, of Mondolfo and Carmina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprise overspread Gonzaga's face. He seemed about to speak, and checked,
+      and his eyes were very searchingly bent upon Galeotto's face, which
+      remained inscrutable as stone. Then the Governor looked at me, and from me
+      back again at Galeotto. At last he smiled, whilst I bowed before him, but
+      very vaguely conscious of what might impend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The time,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;seems to be none too distant. The Duke of Castro&mdash;this
+      Pier Luigi Farnese&mdash;is so confident of ultimate success that already
+      he has taken up his residence in Piacenza, and already, I am informed, is
+      being spoken of as Duke of Parma and Piacenza.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has cause,&rdquo; said Galeotto. &ldquo;Who is to withstand his election since the
+      Emperor, like Pilate, has washed his hands of the affair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile overspread Gonzaga's crafty face. &ldquo;Do not assume too much
+      concerning the Emperor's wishes in the matter. His answer to the Pope was
+      that if Parma and Piacenza are Imperial fiefs&mdash;integral parts of the
+      State of Milan&mdash;it would ill become the Emperor to alienate them from
+      an empire which he holds merely in trust; whereas if they can be shown
+      rightly to belong to the Holy See, why then the matter concerns him not,
+      and the Holy See may settle it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto shrugged and his face grew dark. &ldquo;It amounts to an assent,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; purred Gonzaga, seating himself once more. &ldquo;It amounts to
+      nothing. It is a Sibylline answer which nowise prejudices what he may do
+      in future. We still hope,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;that the Sacred College may refuse
+      the investiture. Pier Luigi Farnese is not in good odour in the Curia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Sacred College cannot withstand the Pope's desires. He has bribed it
+      with the undertaking to restore Nepi and Camerino to the States of the
+      Church in exchange for Parma and Piacenza, which are to form a State for
+      his son. How long, my lord, do you think the College will resist him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Spanish Cardinals all have the Emperor's desires at heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Spanish Cardinals may oppose the measure until they choke themselves
+      with their vehemence,&rdquo; was the ready answer. &ldquo;There are enough of the
+      Pope's creatures to carry the election, and if there were not it would be
+      his to create more until there should be sufficient for his purpose. It is
+      an old subterfuge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; said Gonzaga, smiling, &ldquo;since you are so assured, it is for
+      you and the nobles of Piacenza to be up and doing. The Emperor depends
+      upon you; and you may depend upon him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at the Governor out of his scarred face, and his eyes were
+      very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hoped otherwise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That is why I have been slow to move.
+      That is why I have waited, why I have even committed the treachery of
+      permitting Pier Luigi to suppose me ready at need to engage in his
+      service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, there you play a dangerous game,&rdquo; said Gonzaga frankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll play a more dangerous still ere I have done,&rdquo; he answered stoutly.
+      &ldquo;Neither Pope nor Devil shall dismay me. I have great wrongs to right, as
+      none knows better than your excellency, and if my life should go in the
+      course of it, why&rdquo;&mdash;he shrugged and sneered&mdash;&ldquo;it is all that is
+      left me; and life is a little thing when a man has lost all else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, I know,&rdquo; said the sly Governor, wagging his big head, &ldquo;else I had
+      not warned you. For we need you, Messer Galeotto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, you need me; you'll make a tool of me&mdash;you and your Emperor.
+      You'll use me as a cat's-paw to pull down this inconvenient duke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga rose, frowning. &ldquo;You go a little far, Messer Galeotto,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go no farther than you urge me,&rdquo; answered the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But patience, patience!&rdquo; the Lieutenant soothed him, growing sleek again
+      in tone and manner. &ldquo;Consider now the position. What the Emperor has
+      answered the Pope is no more than the bare and precise truth. It is not
+      clear whether the States of Parma and Piacenza belong to the Empire or the
+      Holy See. But let the people rise and show themselves ill-governed, let
+      them revolt against Farnese once he has been created their duke and when
+      thus the State shall have been alienated from the Holy See, and then you
+      may count upon the Emperor to step in as your liberator and to buttress up
+      your revolt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you promise us so much?&rdquo; asked Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explicitly,&rdquo; was the ready answer, &ldquo;upon my most sacred honour. Send me
+      word that you are in arms, that the first blow has been struck, and I
+      shall be with you with all the force that I can raise in the Emperor's
+      name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your excellency has warrant for this?&rdquo; demanded Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should I promise it else? About it, sir. You may work with confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With confidence, yes,&rdquo; replied Galeotto gloomily, &ldquo;but with no great
+      hope. The Pontifical government has ground the spirit out of half the
+      nobles of the Val di Taro. They have suffered so much and so repeatedly&mdash;in
+      property, in liberty, in life itself&mdash;that they are grown
+      rabbit-hearted, and would sooner cling to the little liberty that is still
+      theirs than strike a blow to gain what belongs to them by every right. Oh,
+      I know them of old! What man can do, I shall do; but...&rdquo; He shrugged, and
+      shook his head sorrowfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you count on none?&rdquo; asked Gonzaga, very serious, stroking his smooth,
+      fat chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can count upon one,&rdquo; answered Galeotto. &ldquo;The Lord of Pagliano; he is
+      ghibelline to the very marrow, and he belongs to me. At my bidding there
+      is nothing he will not do. There is an old debt between us, and he is a
+      noble soul who will not leave his debts unpaid. Upon him I can count; and
+      he is rich and powerful. But then, he is not really a Piacentino himself.
+      He holds his fief direct from the Emperor. Pagliano is part of the State
+      of Milan, and Cavalcanti is no subject of Farnese. His case, therefore, is
+      exceptional and he has less than the usual cause for timidity. But the
+      others...&rdquo; Again he shrugged. &ldquo;What man can do to stir them, that will I
+      do. You shall hear from me soon again, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga looked at me. &ldquo;Did you not say that here was another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto smiled sadly. &ldquo;Ay&mdash;just one arm and one sword. That is all.
+      Unless this emprise succeeds he is never like to rule in Mondolfo. He may
+      be counted upon; but he brings no lances with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Gonzaga, his lip between thumb and forefinger. &ldquo;But his
+      name...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That and his wrongs shall be used, depend upon it, my lord&mdash;the
+      wrongs which are his by inheritance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said no word. A certain resentment filled me to hear myself so disposed
+      of without being consulted; and yet it was tempered by a certain trust in
+      Galeotto, a faith that he would lead me into nothing unworthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga conducted us to the door of the closet. &ldquo;I shall look to hear from
+      you, Ser Galeotto,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And if at first the nobles of the Val di
+      Taro are not to be moved, perhaps after they have had a taste of Messer
+      Pier Luigi's ways they will gather courage out of despair. I think we may
+      be hopeful if patient. Meanwhile, my master the Emperor shall be
+      informed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another moment and we were out of that florid, crafty, well-nourished
+      presence. The curtains had dropped behind us, and we were thrusting our
+      way through the press in the ante-chamber, Galeotto muttering to himself
+      things which as we gained the open air I gathered to be curses directed
+      against the Emperor and his Milanese Lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the inn of the sign of the Sun, by the gigantic Duomo of Visconti's
+      building, he opened the gates to his anger and let it freely forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a world of cravens,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;a world of slothful, self-seeking,
+      supine cowards, Agostino. In the Emperor, at least, I conceived that we
+      should have found a man who would not be averse to acting boldly where his
+      interests must be served. More I had not expected of him; but that, at
+      least. And even in that he fails me. Oh, this Charles V!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;This
+      prince upon whose dominions the sun never sets! Fortune has bestowed upon
+      him all the favours in her gift, yet for himself he can do nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is crafty, cruel, irresolute, and mistrustful of all. He is without
+      greatness of any sort, and he is all but Emperor of the World! Others must
+      do his work for him; others must compass the conquests which he is to
+      enjoy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; he ended, with a sneer, &ldquo;perhaps as the world views these
+      things there is a certain greatness in that&mdash;the greatness of the
+      fox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally there was much in this upon which I needed explanation, and I
+      made bold to intrude upon his anger to crave it. And it was then that I
+      learnt the true position of affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between France and the Empire, the State of Milan had been in contention
+      until quite lately, when Henri II had abandoned it to Charles V. And in
+      the State of Milan were the States of Parma and Piacenza, which Pope
+      Julius II had wrested from it and incorporated in the domain of the
+      Church. The act, however, was unlawful, and although these States had ever
+      since been under Pontifical rule, it was to Milan that they belonged,
+      though Milan never yet had had the power to enforce her rights. She had
+      that power at last, now that the Emperor's rule there was a thing
+      determined, and it was in this moment that papal nepotism was to make a
+      further alienation of them by constituting them into a duchy for the
+      Farnese bastard, Pier Luigi, who was already Duke of Castro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under papal rule the nobles&mdash;more particularly the ghibellines&mdash;and
+      the lesser tyrants of the Val di Taro had suffered rudely, plundered by
+      Pontifical brigandage, enduring confiscations and extortions until they
+      were reduced to a miserable condition. It was against the beginnings of
+      this that my father had raised his standard, to be crushed thorough the
+      supineness of his peers, who would not support him to save themselves from
+      being consumed in the capacious maw of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what they had suffered hitherto would be as nothing to what they must
+      suffer if the Pope now had his way and if Pier Luigi Farnese were to
+      become their duke&mdash;an independent prince. He would break the nobles
+      utterly, to remain undisputed master of the territory. That was a
+      conclusion foregone. And yet our princelings saw the evil approaching
+      them, and cowered irresolute to await and suffer it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had depended, perhaps, upon the Emperor, who, it was known, did not
+      favour the investiture, nor would confirm it. It was remembered that
+      Ottavio Farnese&mdash;Pier Luigi's son&mdash;was married to Margaret of
+      Austria, the Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was
+      to be in Parma and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be
+      that of his own son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the
+      Empire. Further was it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and
+      Emperor to gain the investiture in his own father's stead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The unnatural son!&rdquo; I exclaimed upon learning that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at me, and smiled darkly, stroking his great beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, rather, the unnatural father,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;More honour to Ottavio
+      Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son. It is
+      not a parentage in which any man&mdash;be he the most abandoned&mdash;could
+      take pride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How so?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier
+      Luigi Farnese. I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes
+      must have penetrated even to a hermitage&mdash;that they would be written
+      upon the very face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his
+      infamous life. He is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless,
+      bloody, vicious man that ever drew the breath of life. Indeed, there are
+      not wanting those who call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who has
+      sold his soul to the Devil. Though, for that matter, they say the same of
+      the Pope his father, and I doubt not that his magic is just the magic of a
+      wickedness that is scarcely human.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and a
+      wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
+      lately written the life of another Pope's son&mdash;Cesare Borgia, who
+      lived nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to
+      consolidate the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier
+      Luigi's, was to found a State for himself. I am given to think that for
+      his model of a Pope's bastard this Giovio has taken the wretched Farnese
+      rogue, and attributed to the son of Alexander VI the vices and infamies of
+      this son of Paul III.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even to attempt to draw a parallel is to insult the memory of the Borgia;
+      for he, at least, was a great captain and a great ruler, and he knew how
+      to endear to himself the fold that he governed; so that when I was a lad&mdash;thirty
+      years ago&mdash;there were still those in the Romagna who awaited the
+      Borgia's return, and prayed for it as earnestly as pray the faithful for
+      the second coming of the Messiah, refusing to believe that he was dead.
+      But this Pier Luigi!&rdquo; He thrust out a lip contemptuously. &ldquo;He is no better
+      than a thief, a murderer, a defiler, a bestial, lecherous dog!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that he began to relate some of the deeds of this man; and his
+      life, it seemed, was written in blood and filth&mdash;a tale of murders
+      and rapes and worse. And when as a climax he told me of the horrible,
+      inhuman outrage done to Cosimo Gheri, the young Bishop of Fano, I begged
+      him to cease, for my horror turned me almost physically sick.1
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1 The incident to which Agostino here alludes is fully set forth by
+      Benedetto Varchi at the end of Book XVI of his Storia Fiorentina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That bishop was a holy man, of very saintly life,&rdquo; Galeotto insisted,
+      &ldquo;and the deed permitted the German Lutherans to say that here was a new
+      form of martyrdom for saints invented by the Pope's son. And his father
+      pardoned him the deed, and others as bad, by a secret bull, absolving him
+      from all pains and penalties that he might have incurred through youthful
+      frailty or human incontinence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the relation of those horrors, I think, which, stirring my
+      indignation, spurred me even more than the thought of redressing the
+      wrongs which the Pontifical or Farnesian government would permit my mother
+      to do me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I held out my hand to Galeotto. &ldquo;To the utmost of my little might,&rdquo; said
+      I, &ldquo;you may depend upon me in this good cause in which you have engaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There speaks the son of the house of Anguissola,&rdquo; said he, a light of
+      affection in his steel-coloured eyes. &ldquo;And there are your father's wrongs
+      to right as well as the wrongs of humanity, remember. By this Pier Luigi
+      was he crushed; whilst those who bore arms with him at Perugia and were
+      taken alive...&rdquo; He paused and turned livid, great beads of perspiration
+      standing upon his brow. &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;I cannot even now, after
+      all these years, bear to think upon those horrors perpetrated by that
+      monster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was strangely moved at the sight of emotion in one who seemed
+      emotionless as iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I left the hermitage,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;in the hope that I might the better be
+      able to serve God in the world. I think you are showing me the way, Ser
+      Galeotto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season
+      of wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny
+      to tyranny, just the three of us&mdash;Galeotto and myself with Falcone
+      for our equerry and attendant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been in me;
+      for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the fanaticism
+      with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the course I had taken
+      then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
+      Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke of
+      Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza&mdash;for the investiture duly
+      followed in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to be
+      felt throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto
+      cunningly added yet another and more worldly spur. We were riding one day
+      in late September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had spent a
+      month in seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of resistance, and
+      we were making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold of that great
+      Lombard family of dal Verme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
+      Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled
+      me by his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino,&rdquo; he said,
+      and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my confusion&mdash;more or less at random&mdash;&ldquo;What should
+      Cavalcanti's daughter be to me?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what you will, I think,&rdquo; he answered, taking my question literally.
+      &ldquo;Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina a suitable
+      mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her to the
+      landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than any man
+      that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I need this added spur?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I know that you do not. But it is well to know what reward may wait
+      upon our labour. It makes that labour lighter and increases courage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender. Bianca de'
+      Cavalcanti! It was a name I uttered like a prayer, like a holy invocation.
+      Just so had I been in a measure content to carry that name and the memory
+      of her sweet face. To consider her as the possible Lady of Mondolfo when I
+      should once more have come into my own, was to consider things that filled
+      me almost with despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I experienced such hesitations as had kept me from ever seeking her
+      at Pagliano, though I had been given the freedom of her garden. Giuliana
+      had left her brand upon me. And though Bianca had by now achieved for me
+      what neither prayers nor fasting could accomplish, and had exorcized the
+      unholy visions of Giuliana from my mind, yet when I came to consider
+      Bianca as a possible companion&mdash;as something more or something less
+      than a saint enthroned in the heaven created by my worship of her&mdash;there
+      rose between us ever that barrier of murder and adultery, a barrier which
+      not even in imagination did I dare to overstep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I strove to put such thoughts from my mind that I might leave it free to
+      do the work to which I had now vowed myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All through that winter we pursued our mission. With the dal Verme we had
+      but indifferent success, for they accounted themselves safe, being, like
+      Cavalcanti, feudatories of the Emperor himself, and nowise included in the
+      territories of Parma and Piacenza. From Romagnese we made our way to the
+      stronghold of the Anguissola of Albarola, my cousins, who gave me a very
+      friendly welcome, and who, though with us in spirit and particularly urged
+      by their hatred of our guelphic cousin Cosimo who was now Pier Luigi's
+      favourite, yet hesitated as the others had done. And we met with little
+      better success with Sforza of Santafiora, to whose castle we next
+      repaired, or yet with the Landi, the Scotti, or Confalonieri. Everywhere
+      the same spirit of awe was abroad, and the same pusillanimity, content to
+      hug the little that remained rather than rear its head to demand that
+      which by right belonged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So that when the spring came round again, and our mission done, our
+      crusade preached to hearts that would not be inflamed, we turned our steps
+      once more towards Pagliano, we were utterly dispirited men&mdash;although,
+      for myself, my despondency was tempered a little by the thought that I was
+      to see Bianca once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet before I come to speak of her again, let me have done with these
+      historical matters in so far as they touched ourselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had left the nobles unresponsive, as you have seen. But soon the
+      prognostications of the crafty Gonzaga were realized. Soon Farnese,
+      through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy. The first
+      to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their
+      lands of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife and
+      mother. Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing Romagnese
+      to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their other fief of
+      Bobbio. Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched upon Castel San
+      Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and at the same time he
+      committed the mistake of attempting to drive the Gonzaga out of Soragna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
+      resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga. With the Imperial troops at his heels the
+      Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his family, but
+      forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese, restoring them to the
+      dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of San Giovanni upon which
+      he was at the time engaged&mdash;claiming that both these noble houses
+      were feudatories of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
+      steely claws. To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
+      Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
+      their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
+      cities of their districts. Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed at
+      once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his will,
+      he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
+      having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
+      residence in our palace in the city itself. But she went further than she
+      was bidden&mdash;she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
+      retired from the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
+      Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his garden,
+      slicing the tallest poppies from their stems. And soon to swell his
+      treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
+      confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set himself
+      to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate laws that
+      were retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines and
+      perpetrate fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been done
+      long years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst these, we heard that he had Giovanni d'Anguissola decapitated in
+      effigy for his rebellion against the authority of the Holy See, and that
+      my tyrannies of Mondolfo and Carmina were confiscated from me because of
+      my offence in being Giovanni d'Anguissola's son. And presently we heard
+      that Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal
+      servant and captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a
+      thousand ducats yearly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto ground his teeth and swore horribly when the news was brought us
+      from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope of Bianca&mdash;the
+      hope secretly entertained almost against hope itself&mdash;withering in my
+      soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon came consolation. Pier Luigi had gone too far. Even rats when
+      cornered will turn at bay and bare their teeth for combat. So now the
+      nobles of the Valnure and the Val di Taro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Scotti, the Pallavicini, the Landi, and the Anguissola of Albarola,
+      came one after the other in secret to Pagliano to interview the gloomy
+      Galeotto. And at one gathering that was secretly held in a chamber of the
+      castle, he lashed them with his furious scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are come now,&rdquo; he jeered at them, &ldquo;now that you are maimed; now that
+      you have been bled of half your strength; now that most of your teeth are
+      drawn. Had you but had the spirit and good sense to rise six months ago
+      when I summoned you so to do, the struggle had been brief and the victory
+      certain. Now the fight will be all fraught with risk, dangerous to engage,
+      and uncertain of issue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was they&mdash;these men who themselves had been so pusillanimous
+      at first&mdash;who now urged him to take the lead, swearing to follow him
+      to the death, to save for their children what little was still left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that spirit I will not lead you a step,&rdquo; he answered them. &ldquo;If we
+      raise our standard, we fight for all our ancient rights, for all our
+      privileges, and for the restoration of all that has been confiscated; in
+      short, for the expulsion of the Farnese from these lands. If that is your
+      spirit, then I will consider what is to be done&mdash;for, believe me,
+      open warfare will no longer avail us here. What we have to do must be done
+      by guile. You have waited too long to resolve yourselves. And whilst you
+      have grown weak, Farnese has been growing strong. He has fawned upon and
+      flattered the populace; he has set the people against the nobles; he has
+      pretended that in crushing the nobles he was serving the people, and they&mdash;poor
+      fools!&mdash;have so far believed him that they will run to his banner in
+      any struggle that may ensue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dismissed them at last with the promise that they should hear from him,
+      and on the morrow, attended by Falcone only, he rode forth again from
+      Pagliano, to seek out the dal Verme and the Sforza of Santafiora and
+      endeavour to engage their interest against the man who had outraged them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that was early in August of the year '46.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remained at Pagliano by Galeotto's request. He would have no need of me
+      upon his mission. But he might desire me to seek out some of the others of
+      the Val di Taro with such messages as he should send me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in all this time I had seen but little of Monna Bianca. We met under
+      her father's eye in that gold-and-purple dining-room; and there I would
+      devoutly, though surreptitiously, feast my eyes upon the exquisite beauty
+      of her. But I seldom spoke to her, and then it was upon the most trivial
+      matters; whilst although the summer was now full fragrantly unfolded, yet
+      I never dared to intrude into that garden of hers to which I had been
+      bidden, ever restrained by the overwhelming memory of the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So poignant was this memory that at times I caught myself wondering
+      whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in lending an ear so readily
+      to the arguments of Fra Gervasio, whether Fra Gervasio himself had not
+      been mistaken in assuming that my place was in the world, and whether I
+      had not done best to have carried out my original intention of seeking
+      refuge in some monastery in the lowly position of a lay brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the Lord of Pagliano used me in the most affectionate and
+      fatherly manner. But not even this sufficed to encourage me where his
+      daughter was concerned, and I seemed to observe also that Bianca herself,
+      if she did not actually avoid my society, was certainly at no pains to
+      seek it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the end would have been but for the terrible intervention there was
+      in our affairs, I have often surmised without result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened that one day, about a week after Galeotto had left us there
+      rode up to the gates of Pagliano a very magnificent company, and there was
+      great braying of horns, stamping of horses and rattle of arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Pier Luigi Farnese had been on a visit to his city of Parma, and
+      on his return journey had thought well to turn aside into the lands of
+      ultra-Po, and pay a visit to the Lord of Pagliano, whom he did not love,
+      yet whom, perhaps, it may have been his intention to conciliate, since
+      hurt him he could not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sufficiently severe had been the lesson he had received for meddling with
+      Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of provoking
+      further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V was a
+      sleeping dog it was as well to leave sleeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rode, then, upon his friendly visit into the Castle of Pagliano,
+      attended by a vast retinue of courtiers and ladies, pages, lackeys, and a
+      score of men-at-arms. A messenger had ridden on in advance to warn
+      Cavalcanti of the honour that the Duke proposed to do him, and Cavalcanti,
+      relishing the honour no whit, yet submitting out of discreetness, stood to
+      receive his excellency at the foot of the marble staircase with Bianca on
+      one side and myself upon the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the archway they rode, Farnese at the head of the cavalcade. He
+      bestrode a splendid white palfrey, whose mane and tail were henna-dyed,
+      whose crimson velvet trappings trailed almost to the ground. He was
+      dressed in white velvet, even to his thigh-boots, which were laced with
+      gold and armed with heavy gold spurs. A scarlet plume was clasped by a
+      great diamond in his velvet cap, and on his right wrist was perched a
+      hooded falcon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a tall and gracefully shaped man of something over forty years of
+      age, black-haired and olive-skinned, wearing a small pointed beard that
+      added length to his face. His nose was aquiline, and he had fine eyes, but
+      under them there were heavy brown shadows, and as he came nearer it was
+      seen that his countenance was marred by an unpleasant eruption of sores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came his gentlemen, a round dozen of them, with half that number
+      of splendid ladies, all a very dazzling company. Behind these, in blazing
+      liveries, there was a cloud of pages upon mules, and lackeys leading
+      sumpter-beasts; and then to afford them an effective background, a grey,
+      steel phalanx of men-at-arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I describe his entrance as it appeared at a glance, for I did not study it
+      or absorb any of its details. My horrified gaze was held by a figure that
+      rode on his right hand, a queenly woman with a beautiful pale countenance
+      and a lazy, insolent smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Giuliana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How she came there I did not at the moment trouble to reflect. She was
+      there. That was the hideous fact that made me doubt the sight of my own
+      eyes, made me conceive almost that I was at my disordered visions again,
+      the fruit of too much brooding. I felt as if all the blood were being
+      exhausted from my heart, as if my limbs would refuse their office, and I
+      leaned for support against the terminal of the balustrade by which I
+      stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw me. And after the first slight start of astonishment, her lazy
+      smile grew broader and more insolent. I was but indifferently conscious of
+      the hustle about me, of the fact that Cavalcanti himself was holding the
+      Duke's stirrup, whilst the latter got slowly to the ground and
+      relinquished his falcon to a groom who wore a perch suspended from his
+      neck, bearing three other hooded birds. Similarly I was no more than
+      conscious of being forced to face the Duke by words that Cavalcanti was
+      uttering. He was presenting me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This, my lord, is Agostino d'Anguissola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw, as through a haze, the swarthy, pustuled visage frown down upon me.
+      I heard a voice which was at once harsh and effeminate and quite
+      detestable, saying in unfriendly tones:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The son of Giovanni d'Anguissola of Mondolfo, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same, my lord,&rdquo; said Cavalcanti, adding generously&mdash;&ldquo;Giovanni
+      d'Anguissola was my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a friendship that does you little credit, sir,&rdquo; was the harsh
+      answer. &ldquo;It is not well to befriend the enemies of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it possible that I had heard aright? Had this human foulness dared to
+      speak of God?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest,&rdquo; said
+      Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed from
+      his brown eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that, forewarned
+      of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that one blast from the
+      silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have produced a tide of
+      men-at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed Messer Pier Luigi and
+      his suite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh. And then a lazy,
+      drawling voice&mdash;a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears,
+      but now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs&mdash;addressed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, here is a great change, sir saint! We had heard you had turned
+      anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would
+      out-dazzle Phoebus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face, and
+      I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us with
+      eyes of grave concern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like you better for the change,&rdquo; pursued Giuliana. &ldquo;And I vow that you
+      have grown at least another inch. Have you no word for me, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was forced to answer her. &ldquo;I trust that all is well with you, Madonna,&rdquo;
+       I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of her
+      strong teeth. &ldquo;Why, all is very well with me,&rdquo; said she, and her sidelong
+      glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious kindliness,
+      seemed to give added explanations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
+      wrested from his creature Gambara&mdash;here into the shrine of my pure
+      and saintly Bianca&mdash;was something for which I could have killed him
+      then, for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark
+      turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my Bianca,
+      speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy fire what
+      time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily. He seemed
+      to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance that he kept us
+      all standing there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna,&rdquo; I heard him murmuring.
+      &ldquo;We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen in this garden of
+      Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should be hidden in this grey
+      casket. You were made to queen it in a court, Madonna; and at Piacenza you
+      shall be hailed and honoured as its queen.&rdquo; And so he rambled on with his
+      rough and trivial flattery, his foully pimpled face within a foot of hers,
+      and she shrinking before him, very white and mute and frightened. Her
+      father looked on with darkling brows, and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip
+      and look less lazy, whilst in the courtly background there was a
+      respectful murmuring babble, supplying a sycophantic chorus to the Duke's
+      detestable adulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
+      peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. MADONNA BIANCA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
+      Pagliano. But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
+      upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
+      the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to his
+      secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I learnt,
+      was my old friend Annibale Caro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
+      presence, and gave him and his suite most noble entertainment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His position was perilous and precarious in the extreme, and it needed all
+      his strength of character to hold in curb the resentment that boiled
+      within him to see himself thus preyed upon; and that was not the worst.
+      The worst was Pier Luigi's ceaseless attentions to Bianca, the attentions
+      of the satyr for the nymph, a matter in which I think Cavalcanti suffered
+      little less than did I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hoped for the best, content to wait until cause for action should be
+      forced upon him. And meanwhile that courtly throng took its ease at
+      Pagliano. The garden that hitherto had been Bianca's own sacred domain,
+      the garden into which I had never yet dared set foot, was overrun now by
+      the Duke's gay suite&mdash;a cloud of poisonous butterflies. There in the
+      green, shaded alleys they disported themselves; in the lemon-grove, in the
+      perfumed rose-garden, by hedges of box and screens of purple clematis they
+      fluttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bianca sought to keep her chamber in those days, and kept it for as long
+      on each day as was possible to her. But the Duke, hobbling on the terrace&mdash;for
+      as a consequence of his journey on horseback he had developed a slight
+      lameness, being all rotten with disease&mdash;would grow irritable at her
+      absence, and insistent upon her presence, hinting that her retreat was a
+      discourtesy; so that she was forced to come forth again, and suffer his
+      ponderous attentions and gross flatteries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And three days later there came another to Pagliano, bidden thither by the
+      Duke, and this other was none else than my cousin Cosimo, who now called
+      himself Lord of Mondolfo, having been invested in that tyranny, as I have
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning after his arrival we met upon the terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My saintly cousin!&rdquo; was his derisive greeting. &ldquo;And yet another change in
+      you&mdash;out of sackcloth into velvet! The calendar shall know you as St.
+      Weathercock, I think&mdash;or, perhaps, St. Mountebank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What followed was equally bitter and sardonic on his part, fiercely and
+      openly hostile on mine. At my hostility he had smiled cruelly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be content with what is, my strolling saint,&rdquo; he said, in the tone of one
+      who gives a warning, &ldquo;unless you would be back in your hermitage, or
+      within the walls of some cloister, or even worse. Already have you found
+      it a troublesome matter to busy yourself with the affairs of the world.
+      You were destined for sanctity.&rdquo; He came closer, and grew very fierce. &ldquo;Do
+      not put it upon me to make a saint of you by sending you to Heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might end in your own dispatch to Hell,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Shall we essay it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Body of God!&rdquo; he snarled, laughter still lingering on his white face. &ldquo;Is
+      this the mood of your holiness at present? What a bloodthirsty brave are
+      you become! Consider, pray, sir, that if you trouble me I have no need to
+      do my own office of hangman. There is sufficient against you to make the
+      Tribunal of the Ruota very busy; there is&mdash;can you have forgotten it?&mdash;that
+      little affair at the house of Messer Fifanti.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dropped my glance, browbeaten for an instant. Then I looked at him
+      again, and smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are but a poor coward, Messer Cosimo,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;to use a shadow as a
+      screen. You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana
+      speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake. There are witnesses who
+      will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night. There is not
+      one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth again;
+      and it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana is well-known,
+      as it is well-known that she fled with him after the murder&mdash;which,
+      in itself, is evidence of a sort. Your Duke has too great a respect for
+      the feelings of the populace,&rdquo; I sneered, &ldquo;to venture to outrage them in
+      such a matter. Besides,&rdquo; I ended, &ldquo;it is impossible to incriminate me
+      without incriminating Giuliana and, Messer Pier Luigi seems, I should say,
+      unwilling to relinquish the lady to the brutalities of a tribunal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are greatly daring,&rdquo; said he, and he was pale now, for in that last
+      mention of Giuliana, it seemed that I had touched him where he was still
+      sensitive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Daring?&rdquo; I rejoined. &ldquo;It is more than I can say for you, Ser Cosimo.
+      Yours is the coward's fault of caution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought to spur him. If this failed, I was prepared to strike him, for
+      my temper was beyond control. That he, standing towards me as he did,
+      should dare to mock me, was more than I could brook. But at that moment
+      there spoke a harsh voice just behind me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, sir? What words are these?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There, very magnificent in his suit of ivory velvet, stood the Duke. He
+      was leaning heavily upon his cane, and his face was more blotched than
+      ever, the sunken eyes more sunken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you seeking to quarrel with the Lord of Mondolfo?&rdquo; quoth he, and I
+      saw by his smile that he used my cousin's title as a taunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had
+      seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now
+      there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes. A little on
+      one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen with
+      Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us with
+      half-veiled eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I answered, very stiff and erect, and giving him back look for
+      look, something perhaps of the loathing with which he inspired me
+      imprinted on my face, &ldquo;my lord, you give yourself idle alarms. Ser Cosimo
+      is too cautious to embroil himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He limped toward me; leaning heavily upon his stick, and it pleased me
+      that of a good height though he was, he was forced to look up into my
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is too much bad Anguissola blood in you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Be careful lest
+      out of our solicitude for you, we should find it well to let our leech
+      attend you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, looking into his blotched face, considering his lame leg and
+      all the evil humours in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my faith, I think it is your excellency needs the attentions of a
+      leech,&rdquo; said I, and flung all present into consternation by that answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw his face turn livid, and I saw the hand shake upon the golden head
+      of his cane. He was very sensitive upon the score of his foul infirmities.
+      His eyes grew baleful as he controlled himself. Then he smiled, displaying
+      a ruin of blackened teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had best take care,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It were a pity to cripple such fine
+      limbs as yours. But there is a certain matter upon which the Holy Office
+      might desire to set you some questions. Best be careful, sir, and avoid
+      disagreements with my captains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away. He had had the last word, and had left me cold with
+      apprehension, yet warmed by the consciousness that in the brief encounter
+      it was he who had taken the deeper wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed before Bianca. &ldquo;Oh, pardon me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I did not dream you
+      stood so near. Else no such harsh sounds should have offended your fair
+      ears. As for Messer d'Anguissola...&rdquo; He shrugged as who would say, &ldquo;Have
+      pity on such a boor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But her answer, crisp and sudden as come words that are spoken on impulse
+      or inspiration, dashed his confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing that he said offended me,&rdquo; she told him boldly, almost
+      scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flashed me a glance that was full of venom, and I saw Cosimo smile,
+      whilst Cavalcanti started slightly at such boldness from his meek child.
+      But the Duke was sufficiently master of himself to bow again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then am I less aggrieved,&rdquo; said he, and changed the subject. &ldquo;Shall we to
+      the bowling lawn?&rdquo; And his invitation was direct to Bianca, whilst his
+      eyes passed over her father. Without waiting for their answer, his
+      question, indeed, amounting to a command, he turned sharply to my cousin.
+      &ldquo;Your arm, Cosimo,&rdquo; said he, and leaning heavily upon his captain he went
+      down the broad granite steps, followed by the little knot of courtiers,
+      and, lastly, by Bianca and her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for me, I turned and went indoors, and there was little of the saint
+      left in me in that hour. All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred
+      and anger. Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that
+      Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last to
+      seek her out as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had spent at
+      Pagliano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
+      She was pacing slowly, having fled thither to avoid that hateful throng of
+      courtiers. Seeing me she smiled timidly, and her smile gave me what little
+      further encouragement I needed. I approached, and very earnestly rendered
+      her my thanks for having championed my cause and supported me with the
+      express sign of her approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed
+      and flowed in her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not thank me,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;What I did was done for justice's
+      sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been presumptuous,&rdquo; I answered humbly, &ldquo;in conceiving that it
+      might have been for the sake of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it was that also,&rdquo; she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she had
+      pained me. &ldquo;It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat you. I
+      took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return thrust for
+      thrust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think your presence must have heartened me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;No pain could be
+      so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek. She began to pace
+      slowly down the gallery, and I beside her. Presently she spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I would have you cautious. Do not wantonly affront
+      the Duke, for he is very powerful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have little left to lose,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have your life,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in
+      reproach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again. Thus
+      we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was placed,
+      with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to it with a
+      little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and slightly over
+      her. And now I grew strangely bold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set me some penance,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;that shall make me worthy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A penance?&rdquo; quoth she. &ldquo;I do not understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All my life,&rdquo; I explained, &ldquo;has been a vain striving after something that
+      eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned and
+      rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro, seeking
+      by penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had succumbed.
+      That shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had done, the
+      signs I believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It was not there
+      that I should save myself. One night I was told so in a vision.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell
+      silent, staring back at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as never
+      yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time openly
+      to consider me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know now,&rdquo; she breathed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you know?&rdquo; My voice was tense with excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was your vision?&rdquo; she rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not told you? There appeared to me one who called me back to the
+      world; who assured me that there I should best serve God; who filled me
+      with the conviction that she needed me. She addressed me by name, and
+      spoke of a place of which I had never heard until that hour, but which
+      to-day I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you? And you?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What answer did you make?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I called her by name, although until that hour I did not know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head. Emotion set her all a-tremble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I have so often wondered,&rdquo; she confessed, scarce above a
+      whisper. &ldquo;And it is true&mdash;as true as it is strange!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True?&rdquo; I echoed. &ldquo;It was the only true miracle in that place of false
+      ones, and it was so clear a call of destiny that it decided me to return
+      to the world which I had abandoned. And yet I have since wondered why.
+      Here there seems to be no place for me any more than there was yonder. I
+      am devout again with a worldly devotion now, yet with a devotion that must
+      be Heaven-inspired, so pure and sweet it is. It has shut out from me all
+      the foulness of that past; and yet I am unworthy. And that is why I cry to
+      you to set me some penance ere I can make my prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not understand me, nor did she. We were not as ordinary lovers.
+      We were not as man and maid who, meeting and being drawn each to the
+      other, fence and trifle in a pretty game of dalliance until the maid
+      opines that the appearances are safe, and that, her resistance having been
+      of a seemly length, she may now make the ardently desired surrender with
+      all war's honours. Nothing of that was in our wooing, a wooing which
+      seemed to us, now that we spoke of it, to have been done when we had
+      scarcely met, done in the vision that I had of her, and the vision that
+      she had of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With averted eyes she set me now a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna Giuliana used you with a certain freedom on her arrival, and I
+      have since heard your name coupled with her own by the Duke's ladies. But
+      I have asked no questions of them. I know how false can be the tongues of
+      courtly folk. I ask it now of you. What is or was this Madonna Giuliana to
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was,&rdquo; I answered bitterly, &ldquo;and God pity me that I must say it to you&mdash;she
+      was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a little moan, and I saw her clasp her hands in her lap; and the
+      sound and sight filled me with sorrow and despair. She must know. Better
+      that the knowledge should stand between us as a barrier which both could
+      see than that it should remain visible only to the eyes of my own soul, to
+      daunt me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Bianca! Forgive me!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I did not know! I did not know! I was a
+      poor fool reared in seclusion and ripened thus for the first temptation
+      that should touch me. That is what on Monte Orsaro I sought to expiate,
+      that I might be worthy of the shrine I guarded then. That is what I would
+      expiate now that I might be worthy of the shrine whose guardian I would
+      become, the shrine at which I worship now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was bending very low above her little brown head, in which the threads
+      of the gold coif-net gleamed in the fading light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had but had my vision sooner,&rdquo; I murmured, &ldquo;how easy it would have
+      been! Can you find mercy for me in your gentle heart? Can you forgive me,
+      Bianca?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Agostino,&rdquo; she answered very sadly, and the sound of my name from her
+      lips, coming so naturally and easily, thrilled me like the sound of the
+      mystic music of Monte Orsaro. &ldquo;What shall I answer you? I cannot now. Give
+      me leisure to think. My mind is all benumbed. You have hurt me so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me miserable!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had believed you one who erred through excess of holiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whereas I am one who attempted holiness through excess of error.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had believed you so, so...O Agostino!&rdquo; It was a little wail of pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set me a penance,&rdquo; I implored her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What penance can I set you? Will any penance restore to me my shattered
+      faith?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I groaned miserably and covered my face with my hands. It seemed that I
+      was indeed come to the end of all my hopes; that the world was become as
+      much a mockery to me as had been the hermitage; that the one was to end
+      for me upon the discovery of a fraud, as had the other ended&mdash;with
+      the difference that in this case the fraud was in myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed, indeed, that our first communion must be our last. Ever since
+      she had seen me step into that gold-and-purple dining-room at Pagliano,
+      the incarnation of her vision, as she was the incarnation of mine, Bianca
+      must have waited confidently for this hour, knowing that it was
+      foreordained to come. Bitterness and disillusion were all that it had
+      brought her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, ere more could be said, a thin, flute-like voice hissed down the
+      vaulted gallery:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna Bianca! To hide your beauty from our hungry eyes. To quench the
+      light by which we guide our footsteps. To banish from us the happiness and
+      joy of your presence! Unkind, unkind!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Duke. In his white velvet suit he looked almost ghostly in the
+      deepening twilight. He hobbled towards us, his stick tapping the
+      black-and-white squares of the marble floor. He halted before her, and she
+      put aside her emotion, donned a worldly mask, and rose to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he looked at me, and his brooding eyes seemed to scan my face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! It is Ser Agostino, Lord of Nothing,&rdquo; he sneered, and down the
+      gallery rang the laugh of my cousin Cosimo, and there came, too, a ripple
+      of other voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether to save me from friction with those steely gentlemen who aimed at
+      grinding me to powder, whether from other motives, Bianca set her
+      finger-tips upon the Duke's white sleeve and moved away with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I leaned against the balustrade all numb, watching them depart. I saw
+      Cosimo come upon her other side and lean over her as he moved, so slim and
+      graceful, beside her own slight, graceful figure. Then I sank to the
+      cushions of the seat she had vacated, and stayed there with my misery
+      until the night had closed about the place, and the white marble pillars
+      looked ghostly and unreal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE WARNING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I prayed that evening more fervently than I had prayed since quitting
+      Monte Orsaro. It was as if all the influences of my youth, which lately
+      had been shaken off in the stir of intrigue and of rides that had seemed
+      the prelude to battle, were closing round me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even as a woman had lured me once from the ways to which I seemed
+      predestined, only to drive me back once more the more frenziedly, so now
+      it almost seemed as if again a woman should have lured me to the world but
+      to drive me from it again and more resolutely than ever. For I was anew
+      upon the edge of a resolve to have done with all human interests and to
+      seek the peace and seclusion of the cloister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then I bethought me of Gervasio. I would go to him for guidance, as I
+      had done aforetime. I would ride on the morrow to seek him out in the
+      convent near Piacenza to which he had withdrawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was disturbed at last by the coming of a page to my chamber with the
+      announcement that my lord was already at supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had thoughts of excusing myself, but in the end I went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repast was spread, as usual, in the banqueting-hall of the castle; and
+      about the splendid table was Pier Luigi's company, amounting to nigh upon
+      a score in all. The Duke himself sat on Monna Bianca's right, whilst on
+      her left was Cosimo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heeding little whether I was observed or not, I sank to a vacant place,
+      midway down the board, between one of the Duke's pretty young gentlemen
+      and one of the ladies of that curious train&mdash;a bold-eyed Roman woman,
+      whose name, I remember, was Valeria Cesarini, but who matters nothing in
+      these pages. Almost facing me sat Giuliana, but I was hardly conscious of
+      her, or conscious, indeed, of any save Monna Bianca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once or twice Bianca's glance met mine, but it fell away again upon the
+      instant. She was very pale, and there were wistful lines about her lips;
+      yet her mood was singular. Her eyes had an unnatural sparkle, and ever and
+      anon she would smile at what was said to her in half-whispers, now by the
+      Duke, now by Cosimo, whilst once or twice she laughed outright. Gone was
+      the usual chill reserve with which she hedged herself about to distance
+      the hateful advances of Pier Luigi. There were moments now when she seemed
+      almost flattered by his vile ogling and adulatory speeches, as if she had
+      been one of those brazen ladies of his Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wounded me sorely. I could not understand it, lacking the wit to see
+      that this queer mood sprang from the blow I had dealt her, and was the
+      outward manifestation of her own pain at the shattering of the illusions
+      she had harboured concerning myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so I sat there moodily, gnawing my lip and scowling darkly upon Pier
+      Luigi and upon my cousin, who was as assiduous in his attentions as his
+      master, and who seemed to be receiving an even greater proportion of her
+      favours. One little thing there was to hearten me. Looking at the Lord of
+      Pagliano, who sat at the table's head, I observed that his glance was dark
+      as it kept watch upon his daughter&mdash;that chaste white lily that
+      seemed of a sudden to have assumed such wanton airs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a matter that stirred me to battle, and forgotten again were my
+      resolves to seek Gervasio, forgotten all notion of abandoning the world
+      for the second time. Here was work to be done. Bianca was to be guarded.
+      Perhaps it was in this that she would come to have need of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once Cosimo caught my gloomy looks, and he leaned over to speak to the
+      Duke, who glanced my way with languid, sneering eyes. He had a score to
+      settle with me for the discomfiture he had that morning suffered at my
+      hands thanks to Bianca's collaboration. He was a clumsy fool, when all is
+      said, and confident now of her support&mdash;from the sudden and extreme
+      friendliness of her mood&mdash;he ventured to let loose a shaft at me in a
+      tone that all the table might overhear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That cousin of yours wears a very conventual hang-dog look,&rdquo; said he to
+      Cosimo. And then to the lady on my right&mdash;&ldquo;Forgive, Valeria,&rdquo; he
+      begged, &ldquo;the scurvy chance that should have sat a shaveling next to you.&rdquo;
+       Lastly he turned to me to complete this gross work of offensiveness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When do you look, sir, to enter the life monastic for which Heaven has so
+      clearly designed you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were some sycophants who tittered at his stupid pleasantry; then the
+      table fell silent to hear what answer I should make, and a frown sat like
+      a thundercloud upon the brow of Cavalcanti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I toyed with my goblet, momentarily tempted to fling its contents in his
+      pustuled face, and risk the consequences. But I bethought me of something
+      else that would make a deadlier missile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; I sighed. &ldquo;I have abandoned the notion&mdash;constrained to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took my bait. &ldquo;Constrained?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Now what fool did so constrain
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No fool, but circumstance,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It has occurred to me,&rdquo; I
+      explained, and I boldly held his glance with my own, &ldquo;that as a simple
+      monk my life would be fraught with perils, seeing that in these times even
+      a bishop is not safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saving Bianca (who in her sweet innocence did not so much as dream of the
+      existence of such vileness as that to which I was referring and by which a
+      saintly man had met his death) I do not imagine that there was a single
+      person present who did not understand to what foul crime I alluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence that followed my words was as oppressive as the silence which
+      in Nature preludes thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A vivid flame of scarlet had overspread the Duke's countenance. It
+      receded, leaving his cheeks a greenish white, even to the mottling
+      pimples. Abashed, his smouldering eyes fell away before my bold, defiant
+      glance. The fingers of his trembling hand tightened about the slender stem
+      of his Venetian goblet, so that it snapped, and there was a gush of
+      crimson wine upon the snowy napery. His lips were drawn back&mdash;like a
+      dog's in the act of snarling&mdash;and showed the black stumps of his
+      broken teeth. But he made no sound, uttered no word. It was Cosimo who
+      spoke, half rising as he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out.
+      Suffer me...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my cousin's
+      sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let be,&rdquo; he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. &ldquo;It is for my
+      Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his board.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid. &ldquo;You place a heavy burden on my
+      shoulders,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me
+      against another guest of mine&mdash;against one who is all but friendless
+      and the son of my own best friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my worst enemy,&rdquo; cried Pier Luigi hotly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is your excellency's own concern, not mine,&rdquo; said Cavalcanti coldly.
+      &ldquo;But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer d'Anguissola's words
+      were ill-judged in such a season. Yet in justice I must add that it is not
+      the way of youth to weigh its words too carefully; and you gave him
+      provocation. When a man&mdash;be he never so high&mdash;permits himself to
+      taunt another, he would do well to see that he is not himself vulnerable
+      to taunts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this is to take sides against me; to endorse the
+      affront.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you mistake my intention,&rdquo; rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy dignity.
+      &ldquo;You appeal to me for judgment. And between guests I must hold the scales
+      dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either. Of your chivalry, my
+      lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he cared
+      nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency that
+      Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of Parma
+      might ruffle it unchecked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance. Then his eyes
+      turned to Bianca, and his expression softened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What says Madonna Bianca?&rdquo; he inquired, his manner reassuming some
+      measure of its courtliness. &ldquo;Is her judgment as unmercifully level?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the
+      tenseness of a situation which she did not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What say I?&rdquo; quoth she. &ldquo;Why, that here is a deal of pother about some
+      foolish words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there,&rdquo; cried Pier Luigi, &ldquo;spoke, I think, not only beauty but wisdom&mdash;Minerva's
+      utterances from the lips of Diana!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In glad relief the company echoed his forced laugh, and all sat down
+      again, the incident at an end, and my contempt of the Duke increased to
+      see him permit such a matter to be so lightly ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that night, when I had retired to my chamber, I was visited by
+      Cavalcanti. He was very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;let me implore you to be circumspect, to keep a curb
+      upon your bitter tongue. Be patient, boy, as I am&mdash;and I have more to
+      endure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I marvel, sir, that you endure it,&rdquo; answered I, for my mood was petulant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will marvel less when you are come to my years&mdash;if, indeed, you
+      come to them. For if you pursue this course, and strike back when such men
+      as Pier Luigi tap you, you will not be likely to see old age. Body of
+      Satan! I would that Galeotto were here! If aught should happen to you...&rdquo;
+       He checked, and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For your father's sake I love you, Agostino, and I speak as one who loves
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, I know!&rdquo; I cried, seizing his hand in a sudden penitence. &ldquo;I am
+      an ingrate and a fool. And you upheld me nobly at table. Sir, I swear that
+      I will not submit you to so much concern again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He patted my shoulder in a very friendly fashion, and his kindly eyes
+      smiled upon me. &ldquo;If you but promise that&mdash;for your own sake, Agostino&mdash;we
+      need say no more. God send this papal by-blow takes his departure soon,
+      for he is as unwelcome here as he is unbidden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The foul toad!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;To see him daily, hourly bending over Monna
+      Bianca, whispering and ogling&mdash;ugh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It offends you, eh? And for that I love you! There. Be circumspect and
+      patient, and all will be well. Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure
+      insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort. And in the
+      days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell,
+      there was little provocation to do otherwise. The Duke ignored me, and all
+      the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo. And
+      meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality to
+      which they had not been bidden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach
+      Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview. Nor for
+      that matter was I afforded the opportunity. The Duke and Cosimo were ever
+      at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given place to
+      his captain, for Cosimo's was the greater assiduity now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon
+      hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was
+      sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there
+      was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we
+      danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having
+      neither the will nor the art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
+      footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice behind
+      me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and had come
+      to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided her, neither
+      addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me since the
+      first brazen speech on her arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have
+      caught the Duke in her net of innocence,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face
+      she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face
+      that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are greatly daring,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To take in vain the name of her white innocence?&rdquo; she answered, smiling
+      superciliously. And then she grew more serious. &ldquo;Look, Agostino, we were
+      friends once. I would be your friend now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! We are very scrupulous&mdash;are we not?&mdash;since we have
+      abandoned the ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness,
+      and raised our eyes to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!&rdquo; She
+      spoke sneeringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that to you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she answered frankly. &ldquo;But that another may have raised his
+      eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught to
+      you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more
+      closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the
+      shadows of the gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed over her shoulder at me&mdash;the very incarnation of
+      effrontery and insolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I moved you into sensibility?&rdquo; quoth she. &ldquo;Will you condescend to
+      questions with one whom you despise?&mdash;as, indeed,&rdquo; she added with a
+      stinging scorn, &ldquo;you have every right to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me more precisely what you mean,&rdquo; I begged her, for her words had
+      moved me fearfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gesu!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels? Why,
+      then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's
+      health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into
+      retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And I
+      can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I
+      think that even a saint should understand me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I did
+      not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a shudder
+      her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable that in
+      like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her to give me
+      such advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was incredible. And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my
+      blindness and Cavalcanti's. What precisely Farnese's designs might be I
+      could not conceive. It was hard to think that he should dare so much as
+      Giuliana more than hinted. It may be that, after all, there was no more
+      than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to
+      do what she could to avert it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal
+      of Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome
+      visit to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, it was so. It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the blindest
+      idiot should have perceived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti in the little
+      anteroom that communicated with his bedroom. My patience was tried, for he
+      was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all the sounds
+      had died down in the castle and it was known that all had retired, and
+      still there was no sign of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did
+      he think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing
+      upon this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the
+      door opened, and at last he appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light his
+      face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some unusual
+      agitation. He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and the hand
+      with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when he bade
+      them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a tall,
+      carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet in the
+      middle of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me,
+      and&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Agostino?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thought,&rdquo; I answered after a moment's hesitation, &ldquo;of a means by
+      which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed
+      Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were she
+      removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to amuse him
+      and he would go his ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere
+      suggestion contained in my faltering words. He looked at me gravely and
+      sadly out of that stern face of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But who
+      was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his
+      visit? For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino. It is not he who
+      has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca. Were such the case,
+      I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the Duke of
+      Parma. No, no. My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your cousin Cosimo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him, amazed. It could not be. I remembered Giuliana's words.
+      Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen
+      no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure in
+      witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom I had
+      raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already usurped so
+      much that was my own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you must be mistaken,&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistaken?&rdquo; he echoed. He shook his head, smiling bitterly. &ldquo;There is no
+      possibility of mistake. I am just come from an interview with the Duke and
+      his fine captain. Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's hand
+      for Cosimo d'Anguissola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I declined the honour,&rdquo; he answered sternly, rising in his agitation.
+      &ldquo;I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon the
+      irrevocable quality of my determination; and then this pestilential Duke
+      had the effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he had the
+      power to compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind me that
+      behind him he had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy Office.
+      And when I defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of the
+      Emperor, he suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the Court
+      of the Inquisition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; I cried in liveliest fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An idle threat!&rdquo; he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride
+      the room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I to do with the Holy Office?&rdquo; he snorted. &ldquo;But they had worse
+      indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that Giovanni
+      d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew it to have
+      been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of Mondolfo, and
+      to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano, Mondolfo and
+      Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo d'Anguissola was the
+      way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of Mondolfo already, should
+      receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the Duke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was such indeed your intention?&rdquo; I asked scarce above a whisper, overawed
+      as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and wickedness
+      have cost them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking up
+      into my face. &ldquo;It has been my fondest dream, Agostino,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I groaned. &ldquo;It is a dream that never can be realized now,&rdquo; said I
+      miserably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of Mondolfo,&rdquo;
+       he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reddened and paled under his glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor otherwise,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt which
+      I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should have remained out of this
+      world to which you caused me to return&mdash;unless, indeed, my present
+      torment is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed, I was but
+      brought back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil that I have
+      wrought.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled a little. &ldquo;Is it so with you? Why, then, you afflict yourself
+      too soon, boy. You are over-hasty to judge. I am her father, and my little
+      Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply. I read her better than do
+      you, Agostino. But we will talk of this again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had
+      fired me with such exalted hopes. &ldquo;Meanwhile, there is this Farnese dog
+      with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house. He
+      threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable mind&mdash;until
+      I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his henchman; and
+      he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought, and impudently
+      assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola&mdash;in that guelphic jackal&mdash;I
+      had a husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Let her seek
+      shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his
+      departure. And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little
+      inclination to linger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his
+      clear-cut face. &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;The thing could have been done two
+      weeks ago, when they first came. It would have seemed that the step was
+      determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not
+      alter my plans. But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is not
+      my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, Agostino. Let me have the night to think. I know not how to act. But
+      we will talk again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were
+      face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That I slept little will be readily conceived. I plagued my mind with this
+      matter of Cosimo's suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate intent&mdash;to
+      bring Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it one who was
+      devoted to Farnese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had said:
+      that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter's mind. My hopes rose
+      and tortured me with the suspense they held. Then came to me the awful
+      thought that here there might be a measure of retribution, and that it
+      might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had unconsciously
+      bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this pure and holy
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think,
+      that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and
+      that so we might have speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me. I had been pacing the terrace
+      some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands
+      through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw
+      her issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her without
+      a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was seeking you, Agostino,&rdquo; she said in greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was resolutely barring my way. A slow smile parted her scarlet
+      lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so
+      lovely and now I loathed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you were
+      in no such haste to shun me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I crimsoned under her insolent regard. &ldquo;Have you the courage to remember?&rdquo;
+       I exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy?&rdquo; quoth I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you deny that we were happy on that morning?&mdash;it would be just
+      about this time of year, two years ago. And what a change in you since
+      then! Heigho! And yet men say that woman is inconstant!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know you then,&rdquo; I answered harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know me now? Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you
+      gathered wisdom in the wilderness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her with detestation in my eyes. The effrontery, the ease and
+      insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter
+      shamelessness and heartlessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day after... after your husband died,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I saw you in a dell
+      near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara. In that hour I knew you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bit her lip, then smiled again. &ldquo;What would you?&rdquo; answered she.
+      &ldquo;Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger of
+      my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous,
+      offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and
+      dungeons,&rdquo; she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. &ldquo;Are you, of
+      all men, the one to blame me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not the right, I know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Nor do I blame you more than
+      I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly&mdash;since I
+      despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings
+      are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to
+      go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino,&rdquo; she answered, all
+      unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what emotions
+      might be hers. &ldquo;It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of Pagliano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has
+      already heard it from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing you told me was false,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It was begotten of fear to see
+      your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the circumstance that
+      the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d'Anguissola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Cosimo?&rdquo; she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.
+      &ldquo;For Cosimo? You are sure of this?&rdquo; The urgency of her tone was such that
+      it held me there and compelled my answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it from my lord himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them,
+      and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in
+      every line of her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?&rdquo; she mused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. &ldquo;I see
+      it!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman
+      manner of using complaisant husbands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madonna!&rdquo; I rebuked her angrily&mdash;angry to think that anyone should
+      conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gesu!&rdquo; she returned with a shrug. &ldquo;The thing is plain enough if you will
+      but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke
+      the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once she is
+      safely away&mdash;as Cosimo's wife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then
+      collecting myself. &ldquo;Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so
+      infamous a compact?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any
+      interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay, and
+      see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is
+      consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is no
+      sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in
+      secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her between doubt and horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should you mistrust me?&rdquo; she asked, answering my look. &ldquo;I have been
+      frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve.
+      You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino.&rdquo; And the
+      sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. &ldquo;No, no,
+      beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are in
+      peril.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such
+      interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint,&rdquo; she sneered. &ldquo;Having cast me off and
+      taken up holiness, you have the right, of course.&rdquo; And with that she moved
+      past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look
+      at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you shall find,
+      though little was it to have been supposed so then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more
+      closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But
+      then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that
+      her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with Cosimo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still pursuing the old love,&rdquo; he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head
+      in the direction of Giuliana. &ldquo;We ever return to it in the end, they say;
+      yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi
+      in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to
+      pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me
+      and tapped my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my hands.
+      Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your
+      feet. An evil is hanging over you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal,&rdquo; said I,
+      and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the
+      colour recede from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by
+      the term I had employed. &ldquo;What things has that trull dared to...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I cut in. &ldquo;I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us
+      the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was so
+      fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in a
+      gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the matter
+      thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove Bianca not
+      later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to arrange it
+      he would ride forth at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I lounged
+      in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and considering
+      whether to impart to him the further information I had that morning
+      gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring myself to tell
+      him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting against Bianca. It
+      was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me. Indeed I could
+      scarcely bear to think of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went along
+      the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were descending
+      the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the
+      foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel
+      cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In
+      attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten
+      upon my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. &ldquo;These are familiars
+      of the Holy Office,&rdquo; he answered me, his tone very grave. In that moment
+      the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase to meet us,
+      and his face, too, was very solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was
+      entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano,&rdquo; said Farnese. &ldquo;The Holy Office has
+      sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been
+      seeking for over a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me?&rdquo; I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. &ldquo;What has the
+      Holy Office to do with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The leading familiar advanced. &ldquo;If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there is
+      a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to answer
+      before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sacrilege?&rdquo; I echoed, entirely bewildered&mdash;for my first thought had
+      been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti, and
+      that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter
+      secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had
+      evoked its power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was a
+      matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I well
+      knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tribunal will inform you,&rdquo; replied the familiar&mdash;a tall, sallow,
+      elderly man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity,&rdquo; said
+      Cavalcanti suddenly. &ldquo;Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are
+      not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind me
+      in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn to
+      look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not be so ill-advised, my lord,&rdquo; he was saying, &ldquo;as to compel us
+      to use force.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it,&rdquo; laughed
+      Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. &ldquo;I have five score men-at-arms within
+      these walls, Messer Black-clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The familiar bowed. &ldquo;That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as you
+      say. But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously against
+      the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty which they
+      are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of their just
+      resentment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this
+      tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I
+      seized his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a trap!&rdquo; I muttered in his ear. &ldquo;Beware!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face a
+      sly smile&mdash;the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come venturing
+      from its lair. And I saw the smile perish&mdash;to confirm my suspicions&mdash;when
+      at my whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his rashness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Meanwhile, and you,
+      gentlemen&mdash;give us leave apart.&rdquo; And I drew the bewildered Cavalcanti
+      aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake,&rdquo; I implored him. &ldquo;I am assured that
+      here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as your
+      valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you not see
+      that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against you, and
+      that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you? Indeed, if
+      they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano, had been guilty of
+      contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy Inquisition, that bigot
+      Charles V would be the first to deliver you over to the ghastly practices
+      of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord, that I should tell you
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; he groaned in utter misery. &ldquo;But you, Agostino?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing against me,&rdquo; I answered impatiently. &ldquo;What sacrilege
+      have I ever committed? The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived with
+      a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi there. Courage, then, and
+      self-restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims. Come, my lord, I will
+      ride to Rome with them. And do not doubt that I shall return very soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in every
+      line of a face that was wont to look so resolute. He knew himself between
+      the sword and the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would that Galeotto were here!&rdquo; cried that man usually so self-reliant.
+      &ldquo;What will he say to me when he comes? You were a sacred charge, boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say to him that I will be returning shortly&mdash;which must be true.
+      Come, then. You may serve me this way. The other way you will but have to
+      endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is
+      precisely what they seek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He braced himself at the thought of Bianca. We turned, and in silence we
+      paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that
+      Cavalcanti's face had grown very haggard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I yield me, sir,&rdquo; I said to the familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wise decision,&rdquo; sneered the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust you'll find it so, my lord,&rdquo; I answered, sneering too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti, I
+      mounted and my funereal escort closed about me. We rode across the
+      courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the
+      familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the
+      stoutest-hearted man. As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on
+      the morning air:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing
+      in the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after
+      me, her arms outheld. And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank
+      with a little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and I
+      prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to pay
+      for all the sins of his recreant life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned to
+      tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry of
+      Bianca's made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the Holy
+      Office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE PAPAL BULL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And now, that you may understand to the full the thing that happened, it
+      is necessary that I should relate it here in its proper sequence, although
+      that must entail my own withdrawal for a time from pages upon which too
+      long I have intruded my own doings and thoughts and feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share in
+      it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be a
+      witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail of
+      what this one said and how that one looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim escort,
+      and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the door of
+      my dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into the
+      courtyard of Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was
+      witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging
+      in the gallery at the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing of
+      the Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma, whilst
+      the Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms garrisoned
+      in Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from
+      suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved
+      himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings to
+      the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense, and
+      craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The condottiero swung down from his saddle unaided&mdash;a thing which he
+      could do even when full-armed&mdash;and stood before Farnese, a grim,
+      dust-stained figure, with a curious smile twisting his scarred face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, in answer, &ldquo;I have been upon business that concerns your
+      magnificence somewhat closely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with Falcone at his heels he advanced, the horses relinquished to the
+      grooms who had hastened forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon business that concerns me?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, intrigued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; said Galeotto, who stood now face to face with Farnese at the
+      foot of the steps up which the Duke's attendants were straggling. &ldquo;I have
+      been recruiting forces, and since one of these days your magnificence is
+      to give me occupation, you will see that the matter concerns you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Above leaned Cavalcanti, his face grey and haggard, without the heart to
+      relish the wicked humour of Galeotto that could make jests for his own
+      entertainment. True there was also Falcone to overhear, appreciate, and
+      grin under cover of his great brown hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does this mean that you are come to your senses on the score of a
+      stipend, Ser Galeotto?&rdquo; quoth the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a trader out of the Giudecca to haggle over my wares,&rdquo; replied
+      the burly condottiero. &ldquo;But I nothing doubt that your magnificence and I
+      will come to an understanding at the last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five thousand ducats yearly is my offer,&rdquo; said Farnese, &ldquo;provided that
+      you bring three hundred lances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; said Galeotto softly, &ldquo;you may come to regret one of these
+      days, highness, that you did not think well to pay me the price I ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Regret?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, with a frown of displeasure at so much
+      frankness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you see me engaged in the service of some other,&rdquo; Galeotto
+      explained. &ldquo;You need a condottiero, my lord; and you may come to need one
+      even more than you do now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the Lord of Mondolfo,&rdquo; said the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto stared at him with round eyes. &ldquo;The Lord of Mondolfo?&rdquo; quoth he,
+      intentionally uncomprehending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not heard? Why, here he stands.&rdquo; And he waved a jewelled hand
+      towards Cosimo, a handsome figure in green and blue, standing nearest to
+      Farnese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at this Anguissola, and his brow grew very black.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;you are the Lord of Mondolfo, eh? I think you are
+      very brave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust my valour will not be lacking when the proof of it is needed,&rdquo;
+       answered Cosimo haughtily, feeling the other's unfriendly mood and
+      responding to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot,&rdquo; said Galeotto, &ldquo;since you have the courage to assume that
+      title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser Cosimo.
+      Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was a truly
+      miserable end. His father before him was poisoned by his best friend, and
+      as for the last who legitimately bore that title&mdash;why, none can say
+      that the poor lad was fortunate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last who legitimately bore that title?&rdquo; cried Cosimo, very ruffled.
+      &ldquo;I think, sir, it is your aim to affront me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is more,&rdquo; continued the condottiero, as if Cosimo had not
+      spoken, &ldquo;not only are the lords of Mondolfo unlucky in themselves, but
+      they are a source of ill luck to those they serve. Giovanni's father had
+      but taken service with Cesare Borgia when the latter's ruin came at the
+      hands of Pope Julius II. What Giovanni's own friendship cost his friends
+      none knows better than your highness. So that, when all is said, I think
+      you had better look about you for another condottiero, magnificent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The magnificent stood gnawing his beard and brooding darkly, for he was a
+      grossly superstitious fellow who studied omens and dabbled in horoscopes,
+      divinations, and the like. And he was struck by the thing that Galeotto
+      said. He looked at Cosimo darkly. But Cosimo laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who believes such old wives' tales? Not I, for one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The more fool you!&rdquo; snapped the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, indeed,&rdquo; Galeotto applauded. &ldquo;A disbelief in omens can but spring
+      from an ignorance of such matters. You should study them, Messer Cosimo. I
+      have done so, and I tell you that the lordship of Mondolfo is unlucky to
+      all dark-complexioned men. And when such a man has a mole under the left
+      ear as you have&mdash;in itself a sign of death by hanging&mdash;it is
+      well to avoid all risks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that is very strange!&rdquo; muttered the Duke, much struck by this
+      whittling down of Cosimo's chances, whilst Cosimo shrugged impatiently and
+      smiled contemptuously. &ldquo;You seem to be greatly versed in these matters,
+      Ser Galeotto,&rdquo; added Farnese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He who would succeed in whatever he may undertake should qualify to read
+      all signs,&rdquo; said Galeotto sententiously. &ldquo;I have sought this knowledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you see aught in me that you can read?&rdquo; inquired the Duke in all
+      seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto considered him a moment without any trace in his eyes of the
+      wicked mockery that filled his soul. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he answered slowly, &ldquo;not in
+      your own person, magnificent&mdash;leastways, not upon so brief a glance.
+      But since you ask me, I have lately been considering the new coinage of
+      your highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duke, all eagerness, whilst several of his
+      followers came crowding nearer&mdash;for all the world is interested in
+      omens. &ldquo;What do you read there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your fate, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My fate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you a coin upon you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnese produced a gold ducat, fire-new from the mint. The condottiero
+      took it and placed his finger upon the four letters P L A C&mdash;the
+      abbreviation of &ldquo;Placentia&rdquo; in the inscription.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P&mdash;L&mdash;A&mdash;C,&rdquo; he spelled. &ldquo;That contains your fate,
+      magnificent, and you may read it for yourself.&rdquo; And he returned the coin
+      to the Duke, who stared at the letters foolishly and then at this reader
+      of omens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what is the meaning of PLAC?&rdquo; he asked, and he had paled a little
+      with excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a feeling that it is a sign. I cannot say more. I can but point it
+      out to you, my lord, and leave the deciphering of it to yourself, who are
+      more skilled than most men in such matters. Have I your excellency's leave
+      to go doff this dusty garb?&rdquo; he concluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, go, sir,&rdquo; answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted
+      brows over the coin that bore his image.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Falcone,&rdquo; said Galeotto, and with his equerry at his heels he set
+      his foot on the first step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo leaned forward, a sneer on his white hawk-face, &ldquo;I trust, Ser
+      Galeotto, that you are a better condottiero than a charlatan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, sir,&rdquo; said Galeotto, smiling his sweetest in return, &ldquo;are, I
+      trust, a better charlatan than a condottiero.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up the stairs, the gaudy throng making way before him, and he came
+      at last to the top, where stood the Lord of Pagliano awaiting him, a great
+      trouble in his eyes. They clasped hands in silence, and Cavalcanti went in
+      person to lead his guest to his apartments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not a happy air,&rdquo; said Galeotto as they went. &ldquo;And, Body of God!
+      it is no matter for marvel considering the company you keep. How long has
+      the Farnese beast been here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His visit is now in its third week,&rdquo; said Cavalcanti, answering
+      mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto swore in sheer surprise. &ldquo;By the Host! And what keeps him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti shrugged and let his arms fall to his sides. To Galeotto this
+      proud, stern baron seemed most oddly dispirited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that we must talk,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Things are speeding well and swiftly
+      now,&rdquo; he added, dropping his voice. &ldquo;But more of that presently. I have
+      much to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had reached the chamber that was Galeotto's, and the doors were
+      closed and Falcone was unbuckling his master's spurs&mdash;&ldquo;Now for my
+      news,&rdquo; said the condottiero. &ldquo;But first, to spare me repetitions, let us
+      have Agostino here. Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The look on Cavalcanti's face caused Galeotto to throw up his head like a
+      spirited animal that scents danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; he repeated, and old Falcone's fingers fell idle upon the
+      buckle on which they were engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti's answer was a groan. He flung his long arms to the ceiling, as
+      if invoking Heaven's aid; then he let them fall again heavily, all
+      strength gone out of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto stood an instant looking at him and turning very white. Suddenly
+      he stepped forward, leaving Falcone upon his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; he said, his voice a rumble of thunder. &ldquo;Where is the boy?
+      I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lord of Pagliano could not meet the gaze of those steel coloured eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;How shall I tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo; asked Galeotto, his voice hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no&mdash;not dead. But... But...&rdquo; The plight of one usually so
+      strong, so full of mastery and arrogance, was pitiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; demanded the condottiero. &ldquo;Gesu! Am I a woman, or a man
+      without sorrows, that you need to stand hesitating? Whatever it may be,
+      speak, then, and tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in the clutches of the Holy Office,&rdquo; answered Cavalcanti miserably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at him, his pallor increasing. Then he sat down suddenly,
+      and, elbows on knees, he took his head in his hands and spoke no word for
+      a spell, during which time Falcone, still kneeling, looked from one to the
+      other in an agony of apprehension and impatience to hear more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither noticed the presence of the equerry; nor would it have mattered if
+      they had, for he was trusty as steel, and they had no secrets from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, having gained some measure of self-control, Galeotto begged to
+      know what had happened, and Cavalcanti related the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do? What could I do?&rdquo; he cried when he had finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You let them take him?&rdquo; said Galeotto, like a man who repeats the thing
+      he has been told, because he cannot credit it. &ldquo;You let them take him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What alternative had I?&rdquo; groaned Cavalcanti, his face ashen and seared
+      with pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is that between us, Ettore, that... that will not let me credit
+      this, even though you tell it me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the wretched Lord of Pagliano began to use the very arguments that
+      I had used to him. He spoke of Cosimo's suit of his daughter, and how the
+      Duke sought to constrain him to consent to the alliance. He urged that in
+      this matter of the Holy Office was a trap set for him to place him in
+      Farnese's power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A trap?&rdquo; roared the condottiero, leaping up. &ldquo;What trap? Where is this
+      trap? You had five score men-at-arms under your orders here&mdash;three
+      score of them my own men, each one of whom would have laid down his life
+      for me, and you allowed the boy to be taken hence by six rascals from the
+      Holy Office, intimidated by a paltry score of troopers that rode with this
+      filthy Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay&mdash;not that,&rdquo; the other protested. &ldquo;Had I dared to raise a
+      finger I should have brought myself within the reach of the Inquisition
+      without benefiting Agostino. That was the trap, as Agostino himself
+      perceived. It was he himself who urged me not to intervene, but to let
+      them take him hence, since there was no possible charge which the Holy
+      Office could prefer against him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No charge!&rdquo; cried Galeotto, with a withering scorn. &ldquo;Did villainy ever
+      want for invention? And this trap? Body of God, Ettore, am I to account
+      you a fool after all these years? What trap was there that could be sprung
+      upon you as things stood? Why, man, the game was in your hands entirely.
+      Here was this Farnese in your power. What better hostage than that could
+      you have held? You had but to whistle your war-dogs to heel and seize his
+      person, demanding of the Pope his father a plenary absolution and
+      indemnity for yourself and for Agostino from any prosecutions of the Holy
+      Office ere you surrendered him. And had they attempted to employ force
+      against you, you could have held them in check by threatening to hang the
+      Duke unless the parchments you demanded were signed and delivered to you.
+      My God, Ettore! Must I tell you this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti sank to a seat and took his head in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I deserve all your reproaches. I have been a
+      fool. Worse&mdash;I have wanted for courage.&rdquo; And then, suddenly, he
+      reared his head again, and his glance kindled. &ldquo;But it is not yet too
+      late,&rdquo; he cried, and started up. &ldquo;It is still time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time!&rdquo; sneered Galeotto. &ldquo;Why, the boy is in their hands. It is hostage
+      for hostage now, a very different matter. He is lost&mdash;irretrievably
+      lost!&rdquo; he ended, groaning. &ldquo;We can but avenge him. To save him is beyond
+      our power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Cavalcanti. &ldquo;It is not. I am a dolt, a dotard; and I have been
+      the cause of it. Then I shall pay the price.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What price?&rdquo; quoth the condottiero, pondering the other with an eye that
+      held no faintest gleam of hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Within an hour you shall have in your hands the necessary papers to set
+      Agostino at liberty; and you shall carry them yourself to Rome. It is the
+      amend I owe you. It shall be made.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how is it possible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is possible, and it shall be done. And when it is done you may count
+      upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential Duke
+      in ruin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He strode to the door, his step firm once more and his face set, though it
+      was very grey. &ldquo;I will leave you now. But you may count upon the
+      fulfilment of my promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went out, leaving Galeotto and Falcone alone, and the condottiero flung
+      himself into a chair and sat there moodily, deep in thought, still in his
+      dusty garments and with no thought for changing them. Falcone stood by the
+      window, looking out upon the gardens and not daring to intrude upon his
+      master's mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Cavalcanti found them a hour later when he returned. He brought a
+      parchment, to which was appended a great seal bearing the Pontifical arms.
+      He thrust it into Galeotto's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is the discharge of the debt which through my weakness
+      and folly I have incurred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto looked at the parchment, then at Cavalcanti, and then at the
+      parchment once more. It was a papal bull of plenary pardon and indemnity
+      to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How came you by this?&rdquo; he asked, astonished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is not Farnese the Pope's son?&rdquo; quoth Cavalcanti scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But upon what terms was it conceded? If it involves your honour, your
+      life, or your liberty, here's to make an end of it.&rdquo; And he held it across
+      in his hands as if to tear it, looking up at the Lord of Pagliano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It involves none of these,&rdquo; the latter answered steadily. &ldquo;You had best
+      set out at once. The Holy Office can be swift to act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE THIRD DEGREE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I was haled from my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figures that
+      looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their heads and faces
+      covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for their eyes. Seen
+      by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried to that
+      subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, their very
+      hands tucked away into the wide-mouthed sleeves of their habits, looked
+      spectral and lurid&mdash;horrific messengers of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By chill, dark passages of stone, through which our steps reverberated,
+      they brought me to a pillared, vaulted underground chamber, lighted by
+      torches in iron brackets on the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a dais stood an oaken writing-table bearing two massive wax tapers and
+      a Crucifix. At this table sat a portly, swarthy-visaged man in the black
+      robes of the order of St. Dominic. Immediately below and flanking him on
+      either hand sat two mute cowled figures to do the office of amanuenses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Away on the right, where the shadows were but faintly penetrated by the
+      rays of the torches, stood an engine of wood somewhat of the size and
+      appearance of the framework of a couch, but with stout straps of leather
+      to pinion the patient, and enormous wooden screws upon which the frame
+      could be made to lengthen or contract. From the ceiling grey ropes dangled
+      from pulleys, like the tentacles of some dread monster of cruelty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One glance into that gloomy part of the chamber was enough for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Repressing a shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept my eyes
+      upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors. And he was horror
+      enough for any man in my circumstances to envisage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very fat, with a shaven, swarthy face and the dewlap of an ox. In
+      that round fleshliness his eyes were sunken like two black buttons,
+      malicious through their very want of expression. His mouth was
+      loose-lipped and gluttonous and cruel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he spoke, the deep rumbling quality of his voice was increased by the
+      echoes of that vaulted place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Agostino d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pass over your titles,&rdquo; he boomed. &ldquo;The Holy Office takes no account of
+      worldly rank. What is your age?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in my twenty-first year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Benedicamus Dominum,&rdquo; he commented, though I could not grasp the
+      appositeness of the comment. &ldquo;You stand accused, Agostino d'Anguissola, of
+      sacrilege and of defiling holy things. What have you to say? Do you
+      confess your guilt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so far from confessing it,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;that I have yet to learn
+      what is the nature of the sacrilege with which I am charged. I am
+      conscious of no such sin. Far from it, indeed...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be informed,&rdquo; he interrupted, imposing silence upon me by a
+      wave of his fat hand; and heaving his vast bulk sideways&mdash;&ldquo;Read him
+      the indictment,&rdquo; he bade one of the amanuenses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the depths of a vizored cowl came a thin, shrill voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Holy Office has knowledge that Agostino d'Anguissola did for a space
+      of some six months, during the winter of the year of Our Blessed Lord
+      1544, and the spring of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1545, pursue a
+      fraudulent and sacrilegious traffic, adulterating, for moneys which he
+      extorted from the poor and the faithful, things which are holy, and
+      adapting them to his own base purposes. It is charged against him that in
+      a hermitage on Monte Orsaro he did claim for an image of St. Sebastian
+      that it was miraculous, that it had power to heal suffering and that
+      miraculously it bled from its wounds each year during Passion Week, whence
+      it resulted that pilgrimages were made to this false shrine and great
+      store of alms was collected by the said Agostino d'Anguissola, which
+      moneys he appropriated to his own purposes. It is further known that
+      ultimately he fled the place, fearing discovery, and that after his flight
+      the image was discovered broken and the cunning engine by which this
+      diabolical sacrilege was perpetrated was revealed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Throughout the reading, the fleshy eyes of the inquisitor had been
+      steadily, inscrutably regarding me. He passed a hand over his pendulous
+      chin, as the thin voice faded into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have heard,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard a tangle of falsehood,&rdquo; answered I. &ldquo;Never was truth more
+      untruly told than this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The beady eyes vanished behind narrowing creases of fat; and yet I knew
+      that they were still regarding me. Presently they appeared again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you deny that the image contained this hideous engine of fraud?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set it down,&rdquo; he eagerly bade one of the amanuenses. &ldquo;He confesses thus
+      much.&rdquo; And then to me&mdash;&ldquo;Do you deny that you occupied that hermitage
+      during the season named?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set it down,&rdquo; he said again. &ldquo;What, then, remains?&rdquo; he asked me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud. The trickster was a
+      pretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I was present.
+      I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in the miraculous image,
+      refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested to me, to credit that
+      any man could have dared so vile and sacrilegious a thing. In the end,
+      when it was broken and its fraud discovered, I quitted that ghastly shrine
+      of Satan's in horror and disgust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face. &ldquo;That is the obvious
+      defence,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;But it does not explain the appropriation of
+      the moneys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appropriated none,&rdquo; I cried angrily. That is the foulest lie of all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you deny that alms were made?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware. A vessel of
+      baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of the faithful. It
+      had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a part of these alms
+      among the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build a bridge over the
+      Bagnanza torrent, which was greatly needed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;And when you left you took with you the moneys
+      that had been collected?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I gave the matter no thought. When I left I took
+      nothing with me&mdash;not so much as the habit I had worn in that
+      hermitage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Then he spoke slowly. &ldquo;Such is not the evidence before
+      the Holy Office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What evidence?&rdquo; I cried, breaking in upon his speech. &ldquo;Where is my
+      accuser? Set me face to face with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly he shook his huge head with its absurd fringe of greasy locks about
+      the tonsured scalp&mdash;that symbol of the Crown of Thorns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must surely know that such is not the way of the Holy Office. In its
+      wisdom this tribunal holds that to produce delators would be to subject
+      them perhaps to molestation, and thus dry up the springs of knowledge and
+      information which it now enjoys. So that your request is idle as idle as
+      is the attempt at defence that you have made, the falsehoods with which
+      you have sought to clog the wheels of justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Falsehood, sir monk?&rdquo; quoth I, so fiercely that one of my attendants set
+      a restraining hand upon my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beady eyes vanished and reappeared, and they considered me
+      impassively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sin, Agostino d'Anguissola,&rdquo; said he in his booming, level voice,
+      &ldquo;is the most hideous that the wickedness of man could conceive or
+      diabolical greed put into execution. It is the sin that more than any
+      other closes the door to mercy. It is the offence of Simon Mage, and it is
+      to be expiated only through the gates of death. You shall return hence to
+      your cell, and when the door closes upon you, it closes upon you for all
+      time in life, nor shall you ever see your fellow-man again. There hunger
+      and thirst shall be your executioners, slowly to deprive you of a life of
+      which you have not known how to make better use. Without light or food or
+      drink shall you remain there until you die. This is the punishment for
+      such sacrilege as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not believe it. I stood before him what time he mouthed out those
+      horrible and emotionless words. He paused a moment, and again came that
+      broad gesture of his that stroked mouth and chin. Then he resumed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much for your body. There remains your soul. In its infinite mercy,
+      the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in this life, and
+      that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell. Therefore it
+      urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowal ere you go
+      hence. Confess, then, my son, and save your soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confess?&rdquo; I echoed. &ldquo;Confess to a falsehood? I have told you the truth of
+      this matter. I tell you that in all the world there is none less prone to
+      sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout and faithful.
+      These are lies which have been uttered to my hurt. In dooming me you doom
+      an innocent man. Be it so. I do not know that I have found the world so
+      delectable a place as to quit it with any great regret. My blood be upon
+      your own heads and upon this iniquitous and monstrous tribunal. But spare
+      yourselves at least the greater offence of asking my confession of a
+      falsehood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little eyes had vanished. The face grew very evil, stirred at last
+      into animosity by my denunciation of that court. Then the inscrutable mask
+      slipped once more over that odious countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took up a little mallet, and struck a gong that stood beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard a creaking of hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to my right,
+      where I had perceived no door. Two men came forth&mdash;brawny, muscular,
+      bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoats cut deep at the
+      neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked. The foremost carried a
+      thong of leather in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hoist,&rdquo; said the inquisitor shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men advanced towards me and came to replace the familiars between whom
+      I had been standing. Each seized an arm, and they held me so. I made no
+      resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you confess?&rdquo; the inquisitor demanded. &ldquo;There is still time to save
+      yourself from torture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But already the torture had commenced, for the very threat of it is known
+      as the first degree. I was in despair. Death I could suffer. But under
+      torments I feared that my strength might fail. I felt my flesh creeping
+      and tightening upon my body, which had grown very cold with the awful
+      chill of fear; my hair seemed to bristle and stiffen until I thought that
+      I could feel each separate thread of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear to you that I have spoken the truth,&rdquo; I cried desperately. &ldquo;I
+      swear it by the sacred image of Our Redeemer standing there before you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we believe the oath of an unbeliever attainted of sacrilege?&rdquo; he
+      grumbled, and he almost seemed to sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe or not,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But believe this&mdash;that one day you
+      shall stand face to face with a Judge Whom there is no deceiving, to
+      answer for the abomination that you make of justice in His Holy Name. Let
+      loose against me your worst cruelties, then; they shall be as caresses to
+      the torments that will be loosed against you when your turn for Judgment
+      comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the hoist with him,&rdquo; he commanded, stretching an arm towards the grey
+      tentacle-like ropes. &ldquo;We must soften his heart and break the diabolical
+      pride that makes him persevere in blasphemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They led me aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew down
+      the ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a level with my
+      wrists. And this was torture of the second degree&mdash;to see its
+      imminence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you confess?&rdquo; boomed the inquisitor's voice. I made him no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strip and attach him,&rdquo; he commanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The executioners laid hold of me, and in the twinkling of an eye I stood
+      naked to the waist. I caught my lips in my teeth as the ropes were being
+      adjusted to my wrists, and as thus I suffered torture of the third degree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you confess?&rdquo; came again the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And scarcely had it been put&mdash;for the last time, as I well knew&mdash;than
+      the door was flung open, and a young man in black sprang into the chamber,
+      and ran to thrust a parchment before the inquisitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The inquisitor made a sign to the executioners to await his pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood with throbbing pulses, and waited, instinctively warned that this
+      concerned me. The inquisitor took the parchment, considered its seals and
+      then the writing upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That done he set it down and turned to face us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Release him,&rdquo; he bade the executioners, whereat I felt as I would faint
+      in the intensity of this reaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had done his bidding, the Dominican beckoned me forward. I went,
+      still marvelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how inscrutable are the Divine ways, and how truth must
+      in the end prevail. Your innocence is established, after all, since the
+      Holy Father himself has seen cause to intervene to save you. You are at
+      liberty. You are free to depart and to go wheresoever you will. This bull
+      concerns you.&rdquo; And he held it out to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My mind moved through these happenings as a man moves through a dense fog,
+      faltering and hesitating at every step. I took the parchment and
+      considered it. Satisfied as to its nature, however mystified as to how the
+      Pope had come to intervene, I folded the document and thrust it into my
+      belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the familiars of the Holy Office assisted me to resume my garments;
+      and all was done now in utter silence, and for my own part in the same
+      mental and dream-like confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the inquisitor waved a huge hand doorwards. &ldquo;Ite!&rdquo; he said, and
+      added, whilst his raised hand seemed to perform a benedictory gesture&mdash;&ldquo;Pax
+      Domini sit tecum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Et cum spiritu tuo,&rdquo; I replied mechanically, as, turning, I stumbled out
+      of that dread place in the wake of the messenger who had brought the bull,
+      and who went ahead to guide me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE RETURN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Above in the blessed sunlight, which hurt my eyes&mdash;for I had not seen
+      it for a full week&mdash;I found Galeotto awaiting me in a bare room; and
+      scarcely was I aware of his presence than his great arms went round me and
+      enclasped me so fervently that his corselet almost hurt my breast, and
+      brought back as in a flash a poignant memory of another man fully as tall,
+      who had held me to him one night many years ago, and whose armour, too,
+      had hurt me in that embrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he held me at arms' length and considered me, and his steely eyes
+      were blurred and moist. He muttered something to the familiar, linked his
+      arm through mine and drew me away, down passages, through doors, and so at
+      last into the busy Roman street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went in silence by ways that were well known to him but in which I
+      should assuredly have lost myself, and so we came at last to a fair tavern&mdash;the
+      Osteria del Sole&mdash;near the Tower of Nona.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His horse was stalled here, and a servant led the way above-stairs to the
+      room that he had hired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How wrong had I not been, I reflected, to announce before the Inquisition
+      that I should have no regrets in leaving this world. How ungrateful was
+      that speech, considering this faithful one who loved me for my father's
+      sake! And was there not Bianca, who, surely&mdash;if her last cry, wrung
+      from her by anguish, contained the truth&mdash;must love me for my own?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How sweet the revulsion that now came upon me as I sank into a chair by
+      the window, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that truly happy moment
+      in which the grey shadow of death had been lifted from me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Servants bustled in, to spread the board with the choice meats that
+      Galeotto had ordered, and great baskets of luscious fruits and flagons of
+      red Puglia wine; and soon we seated ourselves to the feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But ere I began to eat, I asked Galeotto how this miracle had been
+      wrought; what magic powers he wielded that even the Holy Office must open
+      its doors at his bidding. With a glance at the servants who attended us,
+      he bade me eat, saying that we should talk anon. And as my reaction had
+      brought a sharp hunger in its train, I fell to with the best will in all
+      the world, and from broth to figs there were few words between us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, our goblets charged and the servants with-drawn, I repeated my
+      inquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The magic is not mine,&rdquo; said Galeotto. &ldquo;It is Cavalcanti's. It was he who
+      obtained this bull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that he set himself briefly to relate the matters that already
+      are contained here concerning that transaction, but the minuter details of
+      which I was later to extract from Falcone. And as he proceeded with his
+      narrative I felt myself growing cold again with apprehension, just as I
+      had grown cold that morning in the hands of the executioners. Until at
+      last, seeing me dead-white, Galeotto checked to inquire what ailed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;what was the price that Cavalcanti paid for this?&rdquo; I inquired
+      in answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not glean it, nor did I stay to insist, for there was haste. He
+      assured me that the thing had been accomplished without hurt to his
+      honour, life, or liberty; and with that I was content, and spurred for
+      Rome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have never since thought what the price was that Cavalcanti might
+      have paid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me with troubled eyes. &ldquo;I confess that in this matter the
+      satisfaction of coming to your salvation has made me selfish. I have had
+      thoughts for nothing else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I groaned, and flung out my arms across the table. &ldquo;He has paid such a
+      price,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that a thousand times sooner would I that you had left me
+      where I was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned forward, frowning darkly. &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then I told him what I feared; told him how Farnese had sued for
+      Bianca's hand for Cosimo; how proudly and finally Cavalcanti had refused;
+      how the Duke had insisted that he would remain at Pagliano until my lord
+      changed his mind; how I had learned from Giuliana the horrible motive that
+      urged the Duke to press for that marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lastly&mdash;&ldquo;And that is the price he consented to pay,&rdquo; I cried wildly.
+      &ldquo;His daughter&mdash;that sweet virgin&mdash;was the price! And at this
+      hour, maybe, the price is paid and that detestable bargain consummated. O,
+      Galeotto! Galeotto! Why was I not left to rot in that dungeon of the
+      Inquisition&mdash;since I could have died happily, knowing naught of
+      this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the Blood of God, boy! Do you imply that I had knowledge? Do you
+      suggest that I would have bought any life at such a price?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I know that you did not&mdash;that you could
+      not...&rdquo; And then I leaped to my feet. &ldquo;And we sit talking here, whilst
+      this... whilst this... O God!&rdquo; I sobbed. &ldquo;We may yet be in time. To horse,
+      then! Let us away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, came to his feet. &ldquo;Ay, you are right. It but remains to remedy
+      the evil. Come, then. Anger shall mend my spent strength. It can be done
+      in three days. We will ride as none ever rode yet since the world began.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And we did&mdash;so desperately that by the morning of the third day,
+      which was a Sunday, we were in Forli (having crossed the Apennines at
+      Arcangelo) and by that same evening in Bologna. We had not slept and we
+      had scarcely rested since leaving Rome. We were almost dead from
+      weariness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since such was my own case, what must have been Galeotto's? He was of
+      iron, it is true. But consider that he had ridden this way at as desperate
+      a pace already, to save me from the clutches of the Inquisition; and that,
+      scarce rested, he was riding north again. Consider this, and you will not
+      marvel that his weariness conquered him at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the inn at Bologna where we dismounted, we found old Falcone awaiting
+      us. He had set out with his master to ride to Rome. But being himself
+      saddle-worn at the time, he had been unable to proceed farther than this,
+      and here Galeotto in his fierce impatience had left him, pursuing his way
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, then, we found the equerry again, consumed by anxiety. He leapt
+      forward to greet me, addressing me by the old title of Madonnino which I
+      loved to hear from him, however much that title might otherwise arouse
+      harsh and gloomy memories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here at Bologna Galeotto announced that he would be forced to rest, and we
+      slept for three hours&mdash;until night had closed in. We were shaken out
+      of our slumbers by the host as he had been ordered; but even then I lay
+      entranced, my limbs refusing their office, until the memory of what was at
+      issue acted like a spur upon me, and caused me to fling my weariness aside
+      as if it had been a cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto, however, was in a deplorable case. He could not move a limb. He
+      was exhausted&mdash;utterly and hopelessly exhausted with fatigue and want
+      of sleep. Falcone and I pulled him to his feet between us; but he
+      collapsed again, unable to stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am spent,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Give me twelve hours&mdash;twelve hours'
+      sleep, Agostino, and I'll ride with you to the Devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I groaned and cursed in one. &ldquo;Twelve hours!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;And she... I can't
+      wait, Galeotto. I must ride on alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He lay on his back and stared up at me, and his eyes had a glassy stare.
+      Then he roused himself by an effort, and raised himself upon his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is it, boy&mdash;ride on alone. Take Falcone. Listen, there are
+      three score men of mine at Pagliano who will follow you to Hell at a word
+      that Falcone shall speak to them from me. About it, then, and save her.
+      But wait, boy! Do no violence to Farnese, if you can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I can't?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can't&mdash;no matter. But endeavour not to offer him any hurt!
+      Leave that to me&mdash;anon when all is ripe for it. To-day it would be
+      premature, and... and we... we should be... crushed by the...&rdquo; His speech
+      trailed off into incoherent mutterings; his eyelids dropped, and he was
+      fast asleep again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes later we were riding north again, and all that night we rode,
+      along the endless Aemilian Way, pausing for no more than a draught of wine
+      from time to time, and munching a loaf as we rode. We crossed the Po, and
+      kept steadily on, taking fresh horses when we could, until towards sunset
+      a turn in the road brought Pagliano into our view&mdash;grey and lichened
+      on the crest of its smooth emerald hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dusk was falling and lights began to gleam from some of the castle
+      windows when we brought up in the shadow of the gateway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man-at-arms lounged out of the guardhouse to inquire our business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Madonna Bianca wed yet?&rdquo; was the breathless greeting I gave him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He peered at me, and then at Falcone, and he swore in some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, returned my lord! Madonna Bianca? The nuptials were celebrated
+      to-day. The bride has gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone?&rdquo; I roared. &ldquo;Gone whither, man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to Piacenza&mdash;to my Lord Cosimo's palace there. They set out
+      some three hours since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your lord?&rdquo; I asked him, flinging myself from the saddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Within doors, most noble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How I found him, or by what ways I went to do so, are things that are
+      effaced completely from my memory. But I know that I came upon him in the
+      library. He was sitting hunched in a great chair, his face ashen, his eyes
+      fevered. At sight of me&mdash;the cause, however innocent, of all this
+      evil&mdash;his brows grew dark, and his eyes angry. If he had reproaches
+      for me, I gave him no time to utter them, but hurled him mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you done, sir?&rdquo; I demanded. &ldquo;By what right did you do this
+      thing? By what right did you make a sacrifice of that sweet dove? Did you
+      conceive me so vile as to think that I should ever owe you gratitude&mdash;that
+      I should ever do aught but abhor the deed, abhor all who had a hand in it,
+      abhor the very life itself purchased for me at such a cost?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cowered before my furious wrath; for I must have seemed terrific as I
+      stood thundering there, my face wild, my eyes bloodshot, half mad from
+      pain and rage and sleeplessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know what you have done?&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;Do you know to what you
+      have sold her? Must I tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And I told him, in a dozen brutal words that brought him to his feet, the
+      lion in him roused at last, his eyes ablaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must after them,&rdquo; I urged. &ldquo;We must wrest her from these beasts, and
+      make a widow of her for the purpose. Galeotto's lances are below and they
+      will follow me. You may bring what more you please. Come, sir&mdash;to
+      horse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang forward with no answer beyond a muttered prayer that we might
+      come in time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must,&rdquo; I answered fiercely, and ran madly from the room, along the
+      gallery and down the stairs, shouting and raging like a maniac, Cavalcanti
+      following me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within ten minutes, Galeotto's three score men and another score of those
+      who garrisoned Pagliano for Cavalcanti were in the saddle and galloping
+      hell-for-leather to Piacenza. Ahead on fresh horses went Falcone and I,
+      the Lord of Pagliano spurring beside me and pestering me with questions as
+      to the source of my knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our great fear was lest we should find the gates of Piacenza closed on our
+      arrival. But we covered the ten miles in something under an hour, and the
+      head of our little column was already through the Fodesta Gate when the
+      first hour of night rang out from the Duomo, giving the signal for the
+      closing of the gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer in charge turned out to view so numerous a company, and
+      challenged us to stand. But I flung him the answer that we were the Black
+      Bands of Ser Galeotto and that we rode by order of the Duke, with which
+      perforce he had to be content; for we did not stay for more and were too
+      numerous to be detained by such meagre force as he commanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the dark street we swept&mdash;the same street down which I had last
+      ridden on that night when Gambara had opened the gates of the prison for
+      me&mdash;and so we came to the square and to Cosimo's palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was in darkness, and the great doors were closed. A strange appearance
+      this for a house to which a bride had so newly come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dismounted as lightly as if I had not ridden lately more than just the
+      ten miles from Pagliano. Indeed, I had become unconscious of all fatigue,
+      entirely oblivious of the fact that for three nights now I had not slept&mdash;save
+      for the three hours at Bologna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knocked briskly on the iron-studded gates. We stood there waiting,
+      Cavalcanti and Falcone afoot with me, the men on horseback still, a silent
+      phalanx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I issued an order to Falcone. &ldquo;Ten of them to secure our egress, the rest
+      to remain here and allow none to leave the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The equerry stepped back to convey the command in his turn to the men, and
+      the ten he summoned slipped instantly from their saddles and ranged
+      themselves in the shadow of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knocked again, more imperatively, and at last the postern in the door
+      was opened by an elderly serving-man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's this?&rdquo; he asked, and thrust a lanthorn into my face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We seek Messer Cosimo d'Anguissola,&rdquo; I answered. He looked beyond me at
+      the troop that lined the street, and his face became troubled. &ldquo;Why, what
+      is amiss?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool, I shall tell that to your master. Conduct me to him. The matter
+      presses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, then&mdash;but have you not heard? My lord was wed to-day. You would
+      not have my lord disturbed at such a time?&rdquo; He seemed to leer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put my foot into his stomach, and bore him backward, flinging him full
+      length upon the ground. He went over and rolled away into a corner, where
+      he lay bellowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence him!&rdquo; I bade the men who followed us in. &ldquo;Then, half of you
+      remain here to guard the stairs; the rest attend us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was vast, and it remained silent, so that it did not seem that
+      the clown's scream when he went over had been heard by any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the broad staircase we sped, guided by the light of the lanthorn, which
+      Falcone had picked up&mdash;for the place was ominously in darkness.
+      Cavalcanti kept pace with me, panting with rage and anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of the stairs we came upon a man whom I recognized for one of
+      the Duke's gentlemen-in-waiting. He had been attracted, no doubt, by the
+      sound of our approach; but at sight of us he turned to escape. Cavalcanti
+      reached forward in time to take him by the ankle, so that he came down
+      heavily upon his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant I was sitting upon him, my dagger at his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sound,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and you shall finish it in Hell!&rdquo; Eyes bulging with
+      fear stared at me out of his white face. He was an effeminate cur, of the
+      sort that the Duke was wont to keep about him, and at once I saw that we
+      should have no trouble with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Cosimo?&rdquo; I asked him shortly. &ldquo;Come, man, conduct us to the room
+      that holds him if you would buy your dirty life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not here,&rdquo; wailed the fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie, you hound,&rdquo; said Cavalcanti, and turning to me&mdash;&ldquo;Finish
+      him, Agostino,&rdquo; he bade me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man under me writhed, filled now by the terror that Cavalcanti had so
+      cunningly known how to inspire in him. &ldquo;I swear to God that he is not
+      here,&rdquo; he answered, and but that fear had robbed him of his voice, he
+      would have screamed it. &ldquo;Gesu! I swear it&mdash;it is true!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked up at Cavalcanti, baffled, and sick with sudden dismay. I saw
+      Cavalcanti's eye, which had grown dull, kindle anew. He stooped over the
+      prostrate man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the bride here&mdash;is my daughter in this house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow whimpered and did not answer until my dagger's edge was at his
+      throat again. Then he suddenly screeched&mdash;&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant I had dragged him to his feet again, his pretty clothes and
+      daintily curled hair all crumpled, so that he looked the most pitiful
+      thing in all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lead us to her chamber,&rdquo; I bade him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he obeyed as men obey when the fear of death is upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      An awful thought was in my mind as we went, evoked by the presence in such
+      a place of one of the Duke's gentlemen; an awful question rose again and
+      again to my lips, and yet I could not bring myself to utter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we went on in utter silence now, my hand upon his shoulder, clutching
+      velvet doublet and flesh and bone beneath it, my dagger bare in my other
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We crossed an antechamber whose heavy carpet muffled our footsteps, and we
+      halted before tapestry curtains that masked a door, Here, curbing my
+      fierce impatience, I paused. I signed to the five attendant soldiers to
+      come no farther; then I consigned the courtier who had guided us to the
+      care of Falcone, and I restrained Cavalcanti, who was shaking from head to
+      foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I raised the heavy, muffling curtain, and standing there an instant by the
+      door, I heard my Bianca's voice, and her words seemed to freeze the very
+      marrow in my bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, my lord,&rdquo; she was imploring in a choking voice, &ldquo;O, my lord, have pity
+      on me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sweet,&rdquo; came the answer, &ldquo;it is I who beseech pity at your hands. Do you
+      not see how I suffer? Do you not see how fiercely love of you is torturing
+      me&mdash;how I burn&mdash;that you can so cruelly deny me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Farnese's voice. Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the
+      horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in a more
+      horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a
+      hand upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand&mdash;the
+      one that held the dagger&mdash;to my lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Softly I tried the latch. I was amazed to find the door yield. And yet,
+      where was the need to lock it? What interruption could he have feared in a
+      house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom, a
+      house that was in the hands of his own people?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the threshold&mdash;Cavalcanti
+      and I&mdash;father and lover of that sweet maid who was the prey of this
+      foul Duke. We stood whilst a man might count a dozen, silent witnesses of
+      that loathsome scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved bed
+      which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask&mdash;symbolizing
+      the purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial
+      altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And to that dread sacrifice she had come&mdash;for my sake, as I was to
+      learn&mdash;with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia. For that sacrifice
+      she had been prepared; but not for this horror that was thrust upon her
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She crouched upon a tall-backed praying-stool, her gown not more white
+      than her face, her little hands convulsively clasped to make her prayer to
+      that monster who stood over her, his mottled face all flushed, his eyes
+      glowing as they considered her helplessness and terror with horrible,
+      pitiless greed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we observed them, ourselves unperceived for some moments, for the
+      praying-stool on which she crouched was placed to the left, by the cowled
+      fire-place, in which a fire of scented wood was crackling, the scene
+      lighted by two golden candlebranches that stood upon the table near the
+      curtained window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, my lord!&rdquo; she cried in her despair, &ldquo;of your mercy leave me, and no
+      man shall ever know that you sought me thus. I will be silent, my lord. O,
+      if you have no pity for me, have, at least, pity for yourself. Do not
+      cover yourself with the infamy of such a deed&mdash;a deed that will make
+      you hateful to all men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gladly at such a price would I purchase your love, my Bianca! What pains
+      could daunt me? Ah, you are mine, you are mine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the hawk that has been long poised closes its wings and drops at last
+      upon its prey, so swooped he of a sudden down upon her, caught and dragged
+      her up from the praying-stool to crush her to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She screamed in that embrace, and sought to battle, swinging round so that
+      her back was fully towards us, and Farnese, swinging round also in that
+      struggle, faced us and beheld us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as if a mask had been abruptly plucked from his face, so sudden and
+      stupendous was its alteration. From flushed that it had been it grew livid
+      and sickly; the unholy fires were spent in his eyes, and they grew dull
+      and dead as a snake's; his jaw was loosened, and the sensual mouth looked
+      unutterably foolish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment I think I smiled upon him, and then Cavalcanti and I sprang
+      forward, both together. As we moved, his arms loosened their hold, and
+      Bianca would have fallen but that I caught her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her terror still upon her, she glanced upwards to see what fresh enemy was
+      this, and then, at sight of my face, as my arms closed about her, and held
+      her safe&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo; she cried, and closed her eyes to lie panting on my breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke, fleeing like a scared rat before the anger of Cavalcanti,
+      scuttled down the room to a small door in the wall that held the
+      fire-place. He tore it open and sprang through, Cavalcanti following
+      recklessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a snarl and a cry, and the Lord of Pagliano staggered back,
+      clutching one hand to his breast, and through his fingers came an ooze of
+      blood. Falcone ran to him. But Cavalcanti swore like a man possessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nothing!&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;By the horns of Satan! it is nothing. A
+      flesh wound, and like a fool I gave back before it. After him! In there!
+      Kill! Kill!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Out came Falcone's sword with a swish, and into the dark closet beyond
+      went the equerry with a roar, Cavalcanti after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that scarce had Farnese got within that closet than, flattening
+      himself against the wall, he had struck at Cavalcanti as the latter
+      followed, thus driving him back and gaining all the respite he needed. For
+      now they found the closet empty. There was a door beyond, that opened to a
+      corridor, and this was locked. Not a doubt but that Farnese had gone that
+      way. They broke that door down. I heard them at it what time I comforted
+      Bianca, and soothed her, stroking her head, her cheek, and murmuring
+      fondly to her until presently she was weeping softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Cavalcanti and Falcone found us presently when they returned. Farnese
+      had escaped with one of his gentlemen who had reached him in time to warn
+      him that the street was full of soldiers and the palace itself invaded.
+      Thereupon the Duke had dropped from one of the windows to the garden, his
+      gentleman with him, and Cavalcanti had been no more than in time to see
+      them disappearing through the garden gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lord of Pagliano's buff-coat was covered with blood where Pier Luigi
+      had stabbed him. But he would give the matter no thought. He was like a
+      tiger now. He dashed out into the antechamber, and I heard him bellowing
+      orders. Someone screamed horribly, and then followed a fierce din as if
+      the very place were coming down about our ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; cried Bianca, quivering in my arms. &ldquo;Are... are they
+      fighting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think so, sweet,&rdquo; I answered her. &ldquo;We are in great strength.
+      Have no fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then Falcone came in again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord of Pagliano is raging like a madman,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We had best be
+      getting away or we shall have a brush with the Captain of Justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Supporting Bianca, I led her from that chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are we going?&rdquo; she asked me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home to Pagliano,&rdquo; I answered her, and with that answer comforted that
+      sorely tried maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found the antechamber in wreckage. The great chandelier had been
+      dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed and cut to ribbons, the
+      arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced to
+      fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and not a
+      pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, it seemed, childishly almost, had Cavalcanti vented his terrible
+      rage, and I could well conceive what would have befallen any of the Duke's
+      people upon whom in that hour he had chanced. I did not know then that the
+      poor pimp who had acted as our guide was hanging from the balcony dead,
+      nor that his had been the horrible scream I had heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the stairs we met the raging Cavalcanti reascending, the stump of his
+      shivered sword in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hasten!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I was coming for you. Let us begone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a
+      heap of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall see,&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Get to horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in
+      front of me, my arm about her to support her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring
+      torch. He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with it
+      in a dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of
+      flame. When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it
+      was all a roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood back and laughed. &ldquo;If there are any more of his brothel-mates in
+      the house, they can escape as he did. They will be more fortunate than
+      that one.&rdquo; And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the balcony,
+      so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With my hand I screened Bianca's eyes. &ldquo;Do not look,&rdquo; I bade her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body. And yet I reflected
+      that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the foul crime
+      that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and worse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to
+      their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the
+      ground floor of Cosimo's palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the Porta Fodesta, and peremptorily bade the guard to open for
+      us. He answered, as became his duty, with the very words that had been
+      addressed to me at that place on a night two years ago:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None passes out to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant a group of our men surrounded him, others made a living
+      barrier before the guard-house, whilst two or three dismounted, drew the
+      bolts, and dragged the great gates open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We rode on, crossing the river, and heading straight for Pagliano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a while it was the sweetest ride that ever I rode, with my Bianca
+      nestling against my breast, and responding faintly to all the foolishness
+      that poured from me in that ambrosial hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then it seemed to me that we rode not by night but in the blazing
+      light of day, along a dusty road, flanking an arid, sun-drenched stretch
+      of the Campagna; and despite the aridity there must be water somewhere,
+      for I heard it thundering as the Bagnanza had thundered after rain, and
+      yet I knew that could not be the Bagnanza, for the Bagnanza was nowhere in
+      the neighbourhood of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a great voice, and I knew it for the voice of Bianca, called me
+      by name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Agostino!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The vision was dissipated. It was night again and we were riding for
+      Pagliano through the fertile lands of ultra-Po; and there was Bianca
+      clutching at my breast and uttering my name in accents of fear, whilst the
+      company about me was halting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; cried Cavalcanti. &ldquo;Are you hurt?&rdquo; I understood. I had been
+      dozing in the saddle, and I must have rolled out of it but that Bianca
+      awakened me with her cry. I said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Body of Satan!&rdquo; he swore. &ldquo;To doze at such a time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have scarce been out of the saddle for three days and three nights&mdash;this
+      is the fourth,&rdquo; I informed him. &ldquo;I have had but three hours' sleep since
+      we left Rome. I am done,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;You, sir, had best take your
+      daughter. She is no longer safe with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so. The fierce tension which had banished sleep from me whilst
+      these things were doing, being now relaxed, left me exhausted as Galeotto
+      had been at Bologna. And Galeotto had urged me to halt and rest there! He
+      had begged for twelve hours! I could now thank Heaven from a full heart
+      for having given me the strength and resolution to ride on, for those
+      twelve hours would have made all the difference between Heaven and Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cavalcanti himself would not take her, confessing to some weakness. For
+      all that he insisted that his wound was not serious, yet he had lost much
+      blood through having neglected in his rage to stanch it. So it was to
+      Falcone that fell the charge of that sweet burden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last thing I remember was Cavalcanti's laugh, as, from the high ground
+      we had mounted, he stopped to survey a ruddy glare above the city of
+      Piacenza, where, in a vomit of sparks, Cosimo's fine palace was being
+      consumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then we rode down into the valley again; and as we went the thud of hooves
+      grew more and more distant, and I slept in the saddle as I rode, a
+      man-at-arms on either side of me, so that I remember no more of the doings
+      of that strenuous night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE PENANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I awakened in the chamber that had been mine at Pagliano before my arrest
+      by order of the Holy Office, and I was told upon awakening that I had
+      slept a night and a day and that it was eventide once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose, bathed, and put on a robe of furs, and then Galeotto came to visit
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had arrived at dawn, and he too had slept for some ten hours since his
+      arrival, yet despite of it his air was haggard, his glance overcast and
+      heavy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I greeted him joyously, conscious that we had done well. But he remained
+      gloomy and unresponsive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is ill news,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Cavalcanti is in a raging fever,
+      and he is sapped of strength, his body almost drained of blood. I even
+      fear that he is poisoned, that Farnese's dagger was laden with some
+      venom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, surely... it will be well with him!&rdquo; I faltered. He shook his head
+      sombrely, his brows furrowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have been stark mad last night. To have raged as he did with such
+      a wound upon him, and to have ridden ten miles afterwards! O, it was
+      midsummer frenzy that sustained him. Here in the courtyard he reeled
+      unconscious from the saddle; they found him drenched with blood from head
+      to foot; and he has been unconscious ever since. I am afraid...&rdquo; He
+      shrugged despondently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that... that he may die?&rdquo; I asked scarce above a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be a miracle if he does not. And that is one more crime to the
+      score of Pier Luigi.&rdquo; He said it in a tone of indescribable passion,
+      shaking his clenched fist at the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The miracle did not come to pass. Two days later, in the presence of
+      Galeotto, Bianca, Fra Gervasio, who had been summoned from his Piacenza
+      convent to shrive the unfortunate baron, and myself, Ettore Cavalcanti
+      sank quietly to rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether he was dealt an envenomed wound, as Galeotto swore, or whether he
+      died as a result of the awful draining of his veins, I do not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end he had a moment of lucidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will guard my Bianca, Agostino,&rdquo; he said to me, and I swore it
+      fervently, as he bade me, whilst upon her knees beyond the bed, clasping
+      one of his hands that had grown white as marble, Bianca was sobbing
+      brokenheartedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the dying man turned his head to Galeotto. &ldquo;You will see justice done
+      upon that monster ere you die,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is God's holy work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then his mind became clouded again by the mists of approaching
+      dissolution, and he sank into a sleep, from which he never awakened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We buried him on the morrow in the Chapel of Pagliano, and on the next day
+      Galeotto drew up a memorial wherein he set forth all the circumstances of
+      the affair in which that gallant gentleman had met his end. It was a
+      terrible indictment of Pier Luigi Farnese. Of this memorial he prepared
+      two copies, and to these&mdash;as witnesses of all the facts therein
+      related&mdash;Bianca, Falcone, and I appended our signatures, and Fra
+      Gervasio added his own. One of these copies Galeotto dispatched to the
+      Pope, the other to Ferrante Gonzaga in Milan, with a request that it
+      should be submitted to the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the memorial was signed, he rose, and taking Bianca's hand in his
+      own, he swore by his every hope of salvation that ere another year was
+      sped her father should be avenged together with all the other of Pier
+      Luigi's victims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That same day he set out again upon his conspirator's work, whose aim was
+      not only the life of Pier Luigi, but the entire shattering of the
+      Pontifical sway in Parma and Piacenza. Some days later he sent me another
+      score of lances&mdash;for he kept his forces scattered about the country
+      whilst gradually he increased their numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter we waited for events at Pagliano, the drawbridge raised, and
+      none entering save after due challenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We expected an attack which never came; for Pier Luigi did not dare to
+      lead an army against an Imperial fief upon such hopeless grounds as were
+      his own. Possibly, too, Galeotto's memorial may have caused the Pope to
+      impose restraint upon his dissolute son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo d'Anguissola, however, had the effrontery to send a messenger a
+      week later to Pagliano, to demand the surrender of his wife, saying that
+      she was his by God's law and man's, and threatening to enforce his rights
+      by an appeal to the Vatican.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That we sent the messenger empty-handed away, it is scarce necessary to
+      chronicle. I was in command at Pagliano, holding it in Bianca's name, as
+      Bianca's lieutenant and castellan, and I made oath that I would never
+      lower the bridge to admit an enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Cosimo's message aroused in us a memory that had lain dormant these
+      days. She was no longer for my wooing. She was the wife of another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came to us almost as a flash of lightning in the night; and it startled
+      us by all that it revealed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fault of it is all mine,&rdquo; said she, as we sat that evening in the
+      gold-and-purple dining-room where we had supped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with those words that she broke the silence that had endured
+      throughout the repast, until the departure of the pages and the seneschal
+      who had ministered to us precisely as in the days when Cavalcanti had been
+      alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, not that, sweet!&rdquo; I implored her, reaching a hand to her across the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is true, my dear,&rdquo; she answered, covering my hand with her own.
+      &ldquo;If I had shown you more mercy when so contritely you confessed your sin,
+      mercy would have been shown to me. I should have known from the sign I had
+      that we were destined for each other; that nothing that you had done could
+      alter that. I did know it, and yet...&rdquo; She halted there, her lip
+      tremulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet you did the only thing that you could do when your sweet purity
+      was outraged by the knowledge of what I really had been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you were so no more,&rdquo; she said with a something of pleading in her
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was you&mdash;the blessed sight of you that cleansed me,&rdquo; I cried.
+      &ldquo;When love for you awoke in me, I knew love for the first time, for that
+      other thing which I deemed love had none of love's holiness. Your image
+      drove out all the sin from my soul. The peace which half a year of
+      penance, of fasting and flagellation could not bring me, was brought me by
+      my love for you when it awoke. It was as a purifying fire that turned to
+      ashes all the evil of desires that my heart had held.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hand pressed mine. She was weeping softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was an outcast,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;I was a mariner without compass, far
+      from the sight of land, striving to find my way by the light of sentiments
+      implanted in me from early youth. I sought salvation desperately&mdash;sought
+      it in a hermitage, as I would have sought it in a cloister but that I had
+      come to regard myself as unworthy of the cloistered life. I found it at
+      last, in you, in the blessed contemplation of you. It was you who taught
+      me the lesson that the world is God's world and that God is in the world
+      as much as in the cloister. Such was the burden of your message that night
+      when you appeared to me on Monte Orsaro.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Agostino!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and all this being so can you refrain from
+      blaming me for what has come to pass? If I had but had faith in you&mdash;the
+      faith in the sign which we both received&mdash;I should have known all
+      this; known that if you had sinned you had been tempted and that you had
+      atoned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think the atonement lies here and now, in this,&rdquo; I answered very
+      gravely. &ldquo;She was the wife of another who dragged me down. You are the
+      wife of another who have lifted me up. She through sin was attainable.
+      That you can never, never be, else should I have done with life in
+      earnest. But do not blame yourself, sweet saint. You did as your pure
+      spirit bade you; soon all would have been well but that already Messer
+      Pier Luigi had seen you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shuddered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, dear that if I submitted to wed your cousin, it was to save you&mdash;that
+      such was the price imposed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear saint!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I but mention it that upon such a score you may have no doubt of my
+      motives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I doubt?&rdquo; I protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose, and moved down the room towards the window, behind which the night
+      gleamed deepest blue. I looked out upon the gardens from which the black
+      shadows of stark poplars thrust upward against the sky, and I thought out
+      this thing. Then I turned to her, having as I imagined found the only and
+      rather obvious solution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is but one thing to do, Bianca.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that?&rdquo; her eyes were very anxious, and looked perhaps even more so in
+      consequence of the pallor of her face and the lines of pain that had come
+      into it in these weeks of such sore trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must remove the barrier that stands between us. I must seek out Cosimo
+      and kill him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said it without anger, without heat of any sort: a calm, cold statement
+      of a step that it was necessary to take. It was a just measure, the only
+      measure that could mend an unjust situation. And so, I think, she too
+      viewed it. For she did not start, or cry out in horror, or manifest the
+      slightest surprise at my proposal. But she shook her head, and smiled very
+      wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a folly would not that be!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How would it amend what is?
+      You would be taken, and justice would be done upon you summarily. Would
+      that make it any easier or any better for me? I should be alone in the
+      world and entirely undefended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but you go too fast,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;By justice I could not suffer, I need
+      but to state the case, the motive of my quarrel, the iniquitous wrong that
+      was attempted against you, the odious traffic of this marriage, and all
+      men would applaud my act. None would dare do me a hurt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too generous in your faith in man,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Who would believe
+      your claims?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The courts,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The courts of a State in which Pier Luigi governs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have witnesses of the facts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those witnesses would never be allowed to testify. Your protests would be
+      smothered. And how would your case really look?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;The world
+      would conceive that the lover of Bianca de' Cavalcanti had killed her
+      husband that he might take her for his own. What could you hope for,
+      against such a charge as that? Men might even remember that other affair
+      of Fifanti's and even the populace, which may be said to have saved you
+      erstwhile, might veer round and change from the opinion which it has ever
+      held. They would say that one who has done such a thing once may do it
+      twice; that...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, for pity's sake, stop! Have mercy!&rdquo; I cried, flinging out my arms
+      towards her. And mercifully she ceased, perceiving that she had said
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned to the window again, and pressed my brow against the cool glass.
+      She was right. That acute mind of hers had pierced straight to the very
+      core of this matter. To do the thing that had been in my mind would be not
+      only to destroy myself, but to defile her; for upon her would recoil a
+      portion of the odium that must be flung at me. And&mdash;as she said&mdash;what
+      then must be her position? They would even have a case upon which to drag
+      her from these walls of Pagliano. She would be a victim of the civil
+      courts; she might, at Pier Luigi's instigation, be proceeded against as my
+      accomplice in what would be accounted a dastardly murder for the basest of
+      motives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned to her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I see that you are right. Just as I was right
+      when I said that my atonement lies here and now. The penance for which I
+      have cried out so long is imposed at last. It is as just as it is cruelly
+      apt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I came slowly back to the table, and stood facing her across it. She
+      looking up at me with very piteous eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bianca, I must go hence,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;That, too, is clear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her lips parted; her eyes dilated; her face, if anything, grew paler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, no, no!&rdquo; she cried piteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;How can I remain? Cosimo may appeal for justice
+      against me, claiming that I hold his wife in duress&mdash;and justice will
+      be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But can you not resist? Pagliano is strong and well-manned. The Black
+      Bands are very faithful men, and they will stand by you to the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the world?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What will the world say of you? It is you
+      yourself have made me see it. Shall your name be dragged in the foul mire
+      of scandal? The wife of Cosimo d'Anguissola a runagate with her husband's
+      cousin? Shall the world say that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moaned, and covered her face with her hands. Then she controlled
+      herself again, and looked at me almost fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you care so much for what men say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then think of me to better purpose, my Agostino. Consider that we are
+      confronted by two evils, and that the choice of the lesser is forced upon
+      us. If you go, I am all unprotected, and... and... the harm is done
+      already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Long I looked at her with such a yearning to take her in my arms and
+      comfort her! And I had the knowledge that if I remained, daily must I
+      experience this yearning which must daily grow crueller and more fierce
+      from the very restraint I must impose upon it. And then that rearing of
+      mine, all drenched in sanctity misunderstood, came to my help, and made me
+      see in this an added burden to my penance, a burden which I must accept if
+      I would win to ultimate grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so I consented to remain, and I parted from her with no more than a
+      kiss bestowed upon her finger-tips, and went to pray for patience and
+      strength to bear my heavy cross and so win to my ultimate reward, be it in
+      this world or the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning came news by a messenger from Galeotto&mdash;news of one
+      more foul crime that the Duke had committed on that awful night when we
+      had rescued Bianca from his evil claws. The unfortunate Giuliana had been
+      found dead in her bed upon the following morning, and the popular voice
+      said that the Duke had strangled her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of that rumour I subsequently had confirmation. It would appear that
+      maddened with rage at the loss of his prey, that ravening wolf had looked
+      about to discover who might have betrayed his purpose and procured that
+      intervention. He bethought him of Giuliana. Had not Cosimo seen her in
+      intimate talk with me on the morning of my arrest, and would he not have
+      reported it to his master?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So to the handsome mansion in which he housed her, and to which at all
+      hours he had access, the Duke went instantly. He must have taxed her with
+      it; and knowing her nature, I can imagine that she not only admitted that
+      his thwarting was due to her, but admitted it mockingly, exultingly,
+      jeering as only a jealous woman can jeer, until in his rage he seized her
+      by the throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How bitterly must she not have repented that she had not kept a better
+      guard upon her tongue, during those moments of her agony, brief in
+      themselves, yet horribly long to her, until her poor wanton spirit went
+      forth from the weak clay that she had loved too well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I heard of the end of that unfortunate, all my bitterness against her
+      went out of me, and in my heart I set myself to find excuses for her.
+      Witty and cultured in much; in much else she had been as stupid as the
+      dumb beast. She was irreligious as were many because what she saw of
+      religion did not inspire respect in her, and whilst one of her lovers had
+      been a prince of the Church another had been the son of the Pope. She was
+      by nature sensuous, and her sensuousness stifled in her all perception of
+      right or wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I like to think that her death was brought about as the result of a good
+      deed&mdash;so easily might it have been the consequence of an evil one.
+      And I trust that that deed&mdash;good in itself, whatever the sources from
+      which it may have sprung&mdash;may have counted in her favour and weighed
+      in the balance against the sins that were largely of her nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I bethought me of Fra Gervasio's words to me: &ldquo;Who that knows all that
+      goes to the making of a sin shall ever dare to blame a sinner?&rdquo; He had
+      applied those words to my own case where Giuliana was concerned. But do
+      they not apply equally to Giuliana? Do they not apply to every sinner,
+      when all is said?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. BLOOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The words that passed between Bianca and me that evening in the
+      dining-room express all that can be said of our attitude to each other
+      during the months that followed. Daily we met, and the things which our
+      lips no longer dared to utter, our eyes expressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days passed and grew to weeks, and these accumulated into months. The
+      autumn faded from gold to grey, and the winter came and laid the earth to
+      sleep, and then followed spring to awaken it once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None troubled us at Pagliano, and we began with some justice to consider
+      ourselves secure. Galeotto's memorial, not a doubt, had stirred up
+      matters; and Pier Luigi would be under orders from his father not to add
+      one more scandal to the many of his life by venturing to disturb Madonna
+      Bianca in her stronghold at Pagliano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time we were visited by Galeotto. It was well for him that
+      fatigue had overwhelmed him that day at Bologna, and so hindered him from
+      taking a hand with us in the doings of that hideous night, else he might
+      no longer have freedom to roam the State unchallenged as he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told us of the new citadel the Duke was building in Piacenza, and how
+      for the purpose he was pulling down houses relentlessly to obtain material
+      and to clear himself a space, and how, further, he was widening and
+      strengthening the walls of the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I doubt,&rdquo; he said one morning in that spring, &ldquo;if he will live to see
+      the work completed. For we are resolved at last. There is no need for an
+      armed rising. Five score of my lances will be all that is necessary. We
+      are planning a surprise, and Ferrante Gonzaga is to be at hand to support
+      us with Imperial troops and to receive the State as the Emperor's
+      vicegerent when the hour strikes. It will strike soon,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and
+      this, too, shall be paid for with the rest.&rdquo; And he touched the black
+      mourning gown that Bianca wore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rode away again that day, and he went north for a last interview with
+      the Emperor's Lieutenant, but promising to return before the blow was
+      struck to give me the opportunity to bear my share in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spring turned to summer, and we waited, wandering in the gardens together;
+      reading together, playing at bowls or tennis, though the latter game was
+      not considered one for women, and sometimes exercising the men-at-arms in
+      the great inner bailey where they lodged. Twice we rode out ahawking,
+      accompanied by a strong escort, and returned without mishap, though I
+      would not consent to a third excursion, lest a rumour having gone abroad,
+      our enemies should lie in wait to trap us. I grew strangely fearful of
+      losing her who did not and who never might belong to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all this time my penance, as I regarded it, grew daily heavier to
+      bear. Long since I had ceased so much as to kiss her finger-tips. But to
+      kiss the very air she breathed was fraught with danger to my peace of
+      mind. And then one evening, as we paced the garden together, I had a
+      moment's madness, a moment in which my yearnings would no longer be
+      repressed. Without warning I swung about, caught her in my arms, and
+      crushed her to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw the sudden flicker of her eyelids, the one swift upward glance of
+      her blue eyes, and I beheld in them a yearning akin to my own, but also a
+      something of fear that gave me pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put her from me. I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, sweet.&rdquo; I besought her very humbly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor Agostino,&rdquo; was all she answered me, what time her fingers
+      fluttered gently over my sable hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
+      save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary
+      of her father's death&mdash;the eighth of that month it was, and a
+      Thursday&mdash;came Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms;
+      and that night he was gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these
+      twelve months past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
+      transpired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the hour,&rdquo; he said very pregnantly. &ldquo;His sands are swiftly running
+      out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone shall
+      remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made upon
+      Pagliano, which is not likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
+      occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio&mdash;that same son-in-law
+      of the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving
+      him the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to
+      answer for his sins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties,
+      for which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no more.
+      Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush the
+      barons, Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no longer
+      needed. Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and their very
+      houses were being pulled down to supply material for the new citadel, the
+      Duke recking little who might thus be left without a roof over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has gone mad,&rdquo; said Galeotto, and laughed. &ldquo;Pier Luigi could not more
+      effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends. The nobles he
+      alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed against him and
+      weary of his rapine. It is so bad with him that of late he has remained
+      shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as to avoid the sight
+      of the starving faces of the poor and the general ruin that he is making
+      of that fair city. He has given out that he is ill. A little blood-letting
+      will cure all his ills for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them their
+      orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as countryfolk,
+      but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they were severally
+      to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the morning of
+      Saturday at the time and place he indicated. They went, and that afternoon
+      we followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will come back to me, Agostino?&rdquo; Bianca said to me at parting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come back,&rdquo; I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very
+      heavy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as we rode the prospect of the thing to do warmed me a little, and I
+      shook off my melancholy. Optimism coloured the world for me all of the
+      rosy hue of promise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads
+      to the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a dozen
+      assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini of
+      Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of Pier
+      Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the house
+      of Confalonieri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which
+      reflected as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was charged,
+      when suddenly Galeotto spun a coin upon the middle of it. It fell flat
+      presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which the
+      abbreviation PLAC was a part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto set his finger to it. &ldquo;A year ago I warned him,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that
+      his fate was written there in that shortened word. To-morrow I shall read
+      the riddle for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not understand the allusion and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also
+      been knit, &ldquo;first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his doom;
+      and then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this
+      undertaking&mdash;Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in this
+      affair,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere, for
+      it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways, according
+      to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were to
+      assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at the Duke's
+      side. He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an inspection of the
+      new fortress that was building. It appeared that once more there was talk
+      between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking service under him,
+      and Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward his plans. He was, I
+      think, the most self-contained and patient man that it would have been
+      possible to find for such an undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback
+      attended the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming
+      corselets and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went
+      afoot to hedge his excellency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed their
+      caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air was sullen
+      and in the main they were silent, though here and there some knave, with
+      the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs, raised a feeble
+      shout of &ldquo;Duca!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
+      crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome in
+      itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for the
+      fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were great
+      brown stains of suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I flattened myself against a wall in the shadow of a doorway lest he
+      should see me, for my height made me an easy mark in that crowd. But he
+      looked neither to right nor to left as he rode. Indeed, it was said that
+      he could no longer bear to meet the glances of the people he had so
+      grossly abused and outraged with deeds that are elsewhere abundantly
+      related, and with which I need not turn your stomachs here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had gone by, I followed slowly in their wake towards the castle.
+      As I turned out of the fine road that Gambara had built, I was joined by
+      the brothers Pallavicini, a pair of resolute, grizzled gentlemen, the
+      elder of whom, as you will remember, was slightly lame. With an odd sense
+      of fitness they had dressed themselves in black. They were accompanied by
+      half a dozen of Galeotto's men, but these bore no device by which they
+      could be identified. We exchanged greetings, and stepped out together
+      across the open space of the Piazza della Citadella towards the fortress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We crossed the drawbridge, and entered unchallenged by the guard. People
+      were wont to come and go, and to approach the Duke it was necessary to
+      pass the guard in the ante-chamber above, whose business it was to
+      question all comers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover the only guard set consisted of a couple of Swiss who lounged in
+      the gateway, the garrison being all at dinner, a circumstance upon which
+      Galeotto had calculated in appointing noon as the hour for the striking of
+      the blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We crossed the quadrangle, and passing under a second archway came into
+      the inner bailey as we had been bidden. Here we were met by Confalonieri,
+      who also had half a dozen men with him. He greeted us, and issued his
+      orders sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, Ser Agostino, are to come with us, whilst you others are to remain
+      here until Messer Landi arrives with the remainder of our forces. He
+      should have a score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard when
+      they enter. The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged as the
+      signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge and
+      overpower the Swiss who should still be at table. Landi has his orders and
+      knows how to act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pallavicini briefly spoke their assents, and Confalonieri, taking me
+      by the arm, led me quickly above-stairs, his half-dozen men following
+      close upon our heels. Upon none was there any sign of armour. But every
+      man wore a shirt of mail under his doublet or jerkin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered the ante-chamber&mdash;a fine, lofty apartment, richly hung and
+      richly furnished. It was empty of courtiers, for all were gone to dine
+      with the captain of the guard, who had been married upon that very morning
+      and was giving a banquet in honour of the event, as Galeotto had informed
+      himself when he appointed the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over by a window sat four of the Swiss&mdash;the entire guard&mdash;about
+      a table playing at dice, their lances deposited in an angle of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Watching their game&mdash;for which he had lingered after accompanying the
+      Duke thus far&mdash;stood the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Galeotto.
+      He turned as we entered, and gave us an indifferent glance as if we were
+      of no interest to him, then returned his attention to the dicers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One or two of the Swiss looked up at us casually. The dice rattled
+      merrily, and there came from the players little splutters of laughter and
+      deep guttural, German oaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the room's far end, by the curtains that masked the door of the chamber
+      where Farnese sat at dinner, stood an usher in black velvet, staff in
+      hand, who took no more interest in us than did the Swiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sauntered over to the dicers' table, and in placing ourselves the
+      better to watch their game, we so contrived that we entirely hemmed them
+      into the embrasure, whilst Confalonieri himself stood with his back to the
+      pikes, an effective barrier between the men and their weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We remained thus for some moments whilst the game went on, and we laughed
+      with the winners and swore with the losers, as if our hearts were entirely
+      in the dicing and we had not another thought in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a pistol-shot crackled below, and startled the Swiss, who looked
+      at one another. One burly fellow whom they named Hubli held the dice-box
+      poised for a throw that was never made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the courtyard below men were running with drawn swords, shouting as
+      they ran, and hurled themselves through the doorway leading to the
+      quarters where the Swiss were at table. This the guards saw through the
+      open window, and they stared, muttering German oaths to express their deep
+      bewilderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then there came a creak of winches and a grinding of chains to inform
+      us that the bridge was being taken up. At last those four lanzknechte
+      looked at us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beim blute Gottes!&rdquo; swore Hubli. &ldquo;Was giebt es?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our set faces, showing no faintest trace of surprise, quickened their
+      alarm, and this became flavoured by suspicion when they perceived at last
+      how closely we pressed about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Continue your game,&rdquo; said Confalonieri quietly, &ldquo;it will be best for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The great blonde fellow Hubli flung down the dice-box and heaved himself
+      up truculently to face the speaker who stood between him and the lances.
+      Instantly Confalonieri stabbed him, and he sank back into his chair with a
+      cry, intensest surprise in his blue eyes, so sudden and unlooked-for had
+      the action been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto had already left the group about the table, and with a blow of
+      his great hand he felled the usher who sought to bar his passage to the
+      Duke's chamber. He tore down the curtains, and he was wrapping and
+      entangling the fellow in the folds of them when I came to his aid followed
+      by Confalonieri, whose six men remained to hold the three sound and the
+      one wounded Swiss in check.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now from below there rose such a din of steel on steel, of shouts and
+      screams and curses, that it behoved us to make haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bidding us follow him, Galeotto flung open the door. At table sat Farnese
+      with two of his gentlemen, one of whom was the Marquis Sforza-Fogliani,
+      the other a doctor of canon law named Copallati.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alarm was already written on their faces. At sight of Galeotto&mdash;&ldquo;Ah!
+      You are still here!&rdquo; cried Farnese. &ldquo;What is taking place below? Have the
+      Swiss fallen to fighting among themselves?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto returned no answer, but advanced slowly into the room; and now
+      Farnese's eyes went past him and fastened upon me, and I saw them suddenly
+      dilate; beyond me they went and met the cold glance of Confalonieri, that
+      other gentleman he had so grievously wronged and whom he had stripped of
+      the last rag of his possessions and his rights. The sun coming through the
+      window caught the steel that Confalonieri still carried in his hands; its
+      glint drew the eyes of the Duke, and he must have seen that the baron's
+      sleeve was bloody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose, leaning heavily upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does this mean?&rdquo; he demanded in a quavering voice, and his face had
+      turned grey with apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means,&rdquo; Galeotto answered him, firmly and coldly, &ldquo;that your rule in
+      Piacenza is at an end, that the Pontifical sway is broken in these States,
+      and that beyond the Po Ferrante Gonzaga waits with an army to take
+      possession here in the Emperor's name. Finally, my Lord Duke, it means
+      that the Devil's patience is to be rewarded, and that he is at last to
+      have you who have so faithfully served him upon earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnese made a gurgling sound and put a jewelled hand to his throat as if
+      he choked. He was all in green velvet, and every button of his doublet was
+      a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its incongruity seemed to
+      heighten the tragedy of the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of his gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed
+      seat, clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white as
+      marble. In like case were the two attendant servants, who hung motionless
+      by the buffet. But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for all his
+      effeminate appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand to his weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly Confalonieri's sword flashed from its sheath. He had passed his
+      dagger into his left hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On your life, my Lord Marquis, do not meddle here,&rdquo; he warned him in a
+      voice that was like a trumpet-call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And before that ferocious aspect and those naked weapons Sforza-Fogliani
+      stood checked and intimidated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I too had drawn my poniard, determined that Farnese should fall to my
+      steel in settlement of the score that lay between us. He saw the act, and
+      if possible his fears were increased, for he knew that the wrongs he had
+      done me were personal matters between us for which it was not likely I
+      should prove forgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; he gasped, and held out supplicating hands to Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy?&rdquo; I echoed, and laughed fiercely. &ldquo;What mercy would you have shown
+      me against whom you set the Holy Office, but that you could sell my life
+      at a price that was merciless? What mercy would you have shown to the
+      daughter of Cavalcanti when she lay in your foul power? What mercy did you
+      show her father who died by your hand? What mercy did you show the
+      unfortunate Giuliana whom you strangled in her bed? What mercy did you
+      ever show to any that you dare ask now for mercy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me with dazed eyes, and from me to Galeotto. He shuddered and
+      turned a greenish hue. His knees were loosened by terror, and he sank back
+      into the chair from which he had risen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least... at least,&rdquo; he gasped, &ldquo;let me have a priest to shrive me. Do
+      not... do not let me die with all my sins upon me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In that moment there came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly
+      moving feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries. The sound
+      heartened him. He conceived that someone came to his assistance. He raised
+      his voice in a desperate screech:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me! To me! Help!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he shouted I sprang towards him, to find my passage suddenly barred by
+      Galeotto's arm. He shot it out, and my breast came against it as against a
+      rod of iron. It threw me out of balance, and ere I had recovered it had
+      thrust me back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back there!&rdquo; said Galeotto's brazen voice. &ldquo;This affair is mine. Mine are
+      the older wrongs and the greater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he stepped behind the Duke's chair, and Farnese in a fresh spurt
+      of panic came to his feet. Galeotto locked an arm about his neck and
+      pulled his head back. Into his ear he muttered words that I could not
+      overhear, but it was matter that stilled Farnese's last struggle. Only the
+      Duke's eyes moved, rolling in his head as he sought to look upon the face
+      of the man who spoke to him. And in that moment Galeotto wrenched his
+      victim's head still farther back, laying entirely bare the long brown
+      throat, across which he swiftly drew his dagger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Copallati screamed and covered his face with his hands; Sforza-Fogliani,
+      white to the lips, looked on like a man entranced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a screech from Farnese that ended in a gurgle, and suddenly the
+      blood spurted from his neck as from a fountain. Galeotto let him go. He
+      dropped to his chair and fell forward against the table, drenching it in
+      blood. Thence he went over sideways and toppled to the floor, where he lay
+      twitching, a huddle of arms and legs, the head lolling sideways, the eyes
+      vitreous, and blood, blood, blood all about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. THE OVERTHROW
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sight turned me almost physically sick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I faced about, and sprang from the room out into the ante-chamber, where a
+      battle was in progress. Some three or four of the Duke's gentlemen and a
+      couple of Swiss had come to attempt a rescue. They had compelled
+      Galeotto's six men to draw and defend themselves, the odds being suddenly
+      all against them. Into that medley I went with drawn sword, hacking and
+      cutting madly, giving knocks and taking them, glad of the excitement of
+      it; glad of anything that would shut out from my mind the horror of the
+      scene I had witnessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently Confalonieri came out to take a hand, leaving Galeotto on guard
+      within, and in a few minutes we had made an end of that resistance&mdash;the
+      last splutter of resistance within those walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond some cuts and scratches that some of us had taken, not a man of
+      ours was missing, whilst of the Duke's followers not a single one remained
+      alive in that ante-chamber. The place was a shambles. Hangings that had
+      been clutched had been torn from the walls; a great mirror was cracked
+      from top to bottom; tables were overset and wrecked; chairs were
+      splintered; and hardly a pane of glass remained in any of the windows. And
+      everywhere there was blood, everywhere dead men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the stairs came trooping now our assembled forces led by Landi and the
+      Pallavicini. Below all was quiet. The Swiss garrison taken by surprise at
+      table, as was planned, had been disarmed and all were safe and impotent
+      under lock and bolt. The guards at the gate had been cut down, and we were
+      entirely masters of the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sforza-Fogliani, Copallati, and the two servants were fetched from the
+      Duke's chamber and taken away to be locked up in another room until the
+      business should be ended. For after all, it was but begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the town the alarm-bell was ringing from the tower of the Communal
+      Palace, and at the sound I saw Galeotto's eyes kindling. He took command,
+      none disputing it him, and under his orders men went briskly to turn the
+      cannon of the fortress upon the square, that an attack might be repulsed
+      if it were attempted. And three salvoes were fired, to notify Ferrante
+      Gonzaga where he waited that the castle was in the hands of the
+      conspirators and Pier Luigi slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile we had returned with Galeotto to the room where the Duke had
+      died, and where his body still lay, huddled as it had fallen. The windows
+      of this chamber were set in the outer wall of the fortress, immediately
+      above the gates and commanding a view of the square. We were six&mdash;Confalonieri,
+      Landi, the two Pallavicini, Galeotto, and myself, besides a slight fellow
+      named Malvicini, who had been an officer of light-horse in the Duke's
+      service, but who had taken a hand in betraying him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the square there was by now a seething, excited mob through which a
+      little army of perhaps a thousand men of the town militia with their
+      captain, da Terni, riding at their head, was forcing its way. And they
+      were shouting &ldquo;Duca!&rdquo; and crying out that the castle had been seized by
+      Spaniards&mdash;by which they meant the Emperor's troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto dragged a chair to the window, and standing upon it, showed
+      himself to the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Disperse!&rdquo; he shouted to them. &ldquo;To your homes! The Duke is dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his voice could not surmount that raging din, above which continued to
+      ring the cry of &ldquo;Duca! Duca!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me show them their Duca,&rdquo; said a voice. It was Malvicini's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had torn down a curtain-rope, and had attached an end of it to one of
+      the dead man's legs. Thus he dragged the body forward towards the window.
+      The other end of the rope he now knotted very firmly to a mullion. Then he
+      took the body up in his arms, whilst Galeotto stood aside to make way for
+      him, and staggering under his ghastly burden, Malvicini reached the
+      window, and heaved it over the sill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It fell the length of the rope and there was arrested with a jerk to hang
+      head downwards, spread-eagle against the brown wall; and the diamond
+      buttons in his green velvet doublet sparkled merrily in the sunshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that sight a great silence swept across the multitude, and availing
+      himself of this, Galeotto again addressed those Piacentini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your homes,&rdquo; he cried to them, &ldquo;and arm yourselves to defend the State
+      from your enemies if the need should arise. There hangs the Duke&mdash;dead.
+      He has been slain to liberate our country from unjust oppression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, it seemed, they did not hear him; for though to us they appeared to
+      be almost silent, yet there was a rustle and stir amongst them, which must
+      have deafened each to what was being announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They renewed their cries of &ldquo;Duca!&rdquo; of &ldquo;Spaniards!&rdquo; and &ldquo;To arms!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A curse on your 'Spaniards!'&rdquo; cried Malvicini. &ldquo;Here! Take your Duke.
+      Look at him, and understand.&rdquo; And he slashed the rope across, so that the
+      body plunged down into the castle ditch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few of the foremost of the crowd ran forward and scrambled down into the
+      ditch to view the body, and from them the rumour of the truth ran like a
+      ripple over water through that mob, so that in the twinkling of an eye
+      there was no man in that vast concourse&mdash;and all Piacenza seemed by
+      now to be packed into the square&mdash;but knew that Pier Luigi Farnese
+      was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sudden hush fell. There were no more cries of &ldquo;Duca!&rdquo; They stood silent,
+      and not a doubt but that in the breasts of the majority surged a great
+      relief. Even the militia ceased to advance. If the Duke was dead there was
+      nothing left to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Galeotto spoke to them, and this time his words were caught by those
+      in the ditch immediately below us, and from them they were passed on, and
+      suddenly a great cry went up&mdash;a shout of relief, a paean of joy. If
+      Farnese was dead, and well dead, they could, at last, express the thing
+      that was in their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now at the far end of the square a glint of armour appeared; a troop
+      of horse emerged, and began slowly to press forward through the crowd,
+      driving it back on either side, but very gently. They came three abreast,
+      and there were six score of them, and from their lance-heads fluttered
+      bannerols showing a sable bar on an argent field. They were Galeotto's
+      free company, headed by one of his lieutenants. Beyond the Po they too had
+      been awaiting the salvo of artillery that should be their signal to
+      advance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When their identity was understood, and when the crowd had perceived that
+      they rode to support the holders of the castle, they were greeted with
+      lusty cheers, in which presently even the militia joined, for these last
+      were Piacentini and no Swiss hireling soldiers of the Duke's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The drawbridge was let down, and the company thundered over it to draw up
+      in the courtyard under the eyes of Galeotto. He issued his orders once
+      more to his companions. Then calling for horses for himself and for me,
+      and bidding a score of lances to detach themselves to ride with us, we
+      quitted the fortress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We pressed through the clamant multitude until we had reached the middle
+      of the square. Here Galeotto drew rein and, raising his hand for silence,
+      informed the people once more that the Duke had been done to death by the
+      nobles of Piacenza, thus to avenge alike their own and the people's
+      wrongs, and to free them from unjust oppression and tyranny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They cheered him when he had done, and the cry now was &ldquo;Piacenza!
+      Piacenza!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had fallen silent again&mdash;&ldquo;I would have you remember,&rdquo; he
+      cried, &ldquo;that Pier Luigi was the Pontiff's son, and that the Pontiff will
+      make haste to avenge his death and to re-establish here in Piacenza the
+      Farnese sway. So that all that we have done this day may go for naught
+      unless we take our measures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence deepened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have been served by men who have the interest of the State at
+      heart; and more has been done to serve you than the mere slaying of Pier
+      Luigi Farnese. Our plans are made, and we but wait to know is it your will
+      that the State should incorporate itself as of old with that of Milan, and
+      place itself under the protection of the Emperor, who will appoint you
+      fellow-countrymen for rulers, and will govern you wisely and justly,
+      abolishing extortion and oppression?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A thunder of assent was his answer. &ldquo;Cesare! Cesare!&rdquo; was now the cry, and
+      caps were tossed into the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then go arm yourselves and repair to the Commune, and there make known
+      your will to the Anziani and councillors, and see that it is given effect
+      by them. The Emperor's Lieutenant is at your gates. I ride to surrender to
+      him the city in your name, and before nightfall he will be here to protect
+      you from any onslaught of the Pontificals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he pushed on, the mob streaming along with us, intent upon going
+      there and then to do the thing that Galeotto advised. And by now they had
+      discovered Galeotto's name, and they were shouting it in acclamation of
+      him, and at the sound he smiled, though his eyes seemed very wistful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned over to me, and gripped my hand where it lay on the saddle-bow
+      clutching the reins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thus is Giovanni d'Anguissola at last avenged!&rdquo; he said to me in a deep
+      voice that thrilled me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would that he were here to know,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again Galeotto's eyes grew wistful as they looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We won out of the town at last, and when we came to the high ground beyond
+      the river, we saw in the plain below phalanx upon phalanx of a great army.
+      It was Ferrante Gonzaga's Imperial force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galeotto pointed to it. &ldquo;That is my goal,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You had best ride on
+      to Pagliano with these lances. You may need them there. I had hoped that
+      Cosimo would have been found in the castle with Pier Luigi. His absence
+      makes me uneasy. Away with you, then. You shall have news of me within
+      three days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We embraced, on horseback as we were. Then he wheeled his charger and went
+      down the steep ground, riding hard for Ferrante's army, whilst we pursued
+      our way, and came some two hours later without mishap to Pagliano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found Bianca awaiting me in the gallery above the courtyard, drawn
+      thither by the sounds of our approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Agostino, I have been so fearful for you,&rdquo; was her greeting when I
+      had leapt up the staircase to take her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I led her to the marble seat she had occupied on that night, two years
+      ago, when first we had spoken of our visions. Briefly I gave her the news
+      of what had befallen in Piacenza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had done, she sighed and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It brings us no nearer to each other,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, now&mdash;this much nearer, at least, that the Imperial decree will
+      return me the lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina, dispossessing the
+      usurper. Thus I shall have something to offer you, my Bianca.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled at me very sadly, almost reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foolish,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;What matter the possessions that it may be yours to
+      cast into my lap? Is that what we wait for, Agostino? Is there not
+      Pagliano for you? Would not that, at need, be lordship enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The meanest cottage of the countryside were lordship enough so that you
+      shared it,&rdquo; I answered passionately, as many in like case have answered
+      before and since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, then, that you are wrong to attach importance to so slight a
+      thing as this Imperial decree where you and I are concerned. Can an
+      Imperial decree annul my marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For that a papal bull would be necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is a papal bull to be obtained?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for us,&rdquo; I admitted miserably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been wicked,&rdquo; she said, her eyes upon the ground, a faint colour
+      stirring in her cheeks. &ldquo;I have prayed that the usurper might be
+      dispossessed of his rights in me. I have prayed that when the attack was
+      made and revolt was carried into the Citadel of Piacenza, Cosimo
+      d'Anguissola might stand at his usual post beside the Duke and might fall
+      with him. Surely justice demanded it!&rdquo; she cried out. &ldquo;God's justice, as
+      well as man's. His act in marrying me was a defilement of one of the
+      holiest of sacraments, and for that he should surely be punished and
+      struck down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went upon my knees to her. &ldquo;Dear love!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;See, I have you daily
+      in my sight. Let me not be ungrateful for so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes, saying no word.
+      Then she leaned forward, and very gently touched my forehead with her
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God pity us a little, Agostino,&rdquo; she murmured, her eyes shining with
+      unshed tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fault is mine&mdash;all mine!&rdquo; I denounced myself. &ldquo;We are being
+      visited with my sins. When I can take you for my own&mdash;if that blessed
+      day should ever dawn&mdash;I shall know that I have attained to pardon,
+      that I am cleansed and worthy of you at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose and I escorted her within; then went to my own chamber to bathe
+      and rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. THE CITATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We were breaking our fast upon the following morning when Falcone sent
+      word to me by one of the pages that a considerable force was advancing
+      towards us from the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose, somewhat uneasy. Yet I reflected that it was possible that, news
+      of the revolt in Piacenza having reached Parma, this was an army of
+      Pontificals moving thence upon the rebellious city. But in that case, what
+      should they be doing this side of Po?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later, from the battlements where we paced side by side&mdash;Bianca
+      and I&mdash;we were able to estimate this force and we fixed its strength
+      at five score lances. Soon we could make out the device upon their
+      bannerols&mdash;a boar's head azure upon an argent field&mdash;my own
+      device, that of the Anguissola of Mondolfo; and instantly I knew them for
+      Cosimo's men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the lower parapet six culverins had been dragged into position under
+      the supervision of Falcone&mdash;who was still with us at Pagliano. These
+      pieces stood loaded and manned by the soldiers to whom I had assigned the
+      office of engineers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we waited until the little army came to a halt about a quarter of a
+      mile away, and a trumpeter with a flag of truce rode forward accompanied
+      by a knight armed cap-a-pie, his beaver down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The herald wound a challenge; and it was answered from the postern by a
+      man-at-arms, whereupon the herald delivered his message.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of our Holy Father and Lord, Paul III, we summon Agostino
+      d'Anguissola here to confer with the High and Mighty Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+      Tyrant of Mondolfo and Carmina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three minutes later, to their infinite surprise, the bridge thudded down
+      to span the ditch, and I walked out upon it with Bianca at my side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will the Lord Cosimo come within to deliver his message?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lord Cosimo would not, fearing a trap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will he meet us here upon the bridge, divesting himself first of his
+      weapons? Myself I am unarmed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The herald conveyed the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he
+      had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the
+      first sign of a sortie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;You are a paltry coward, Cosimo, when all is said,&rdquo; I shouted.
+      &ldquo;Do you not see that had I planned to take you, I need resort to no
+      subterfuge? I have,&rdquo; I added&mdash;though untruthfully&mdash;&ldquo;twice your
+      number of lances under arms, and by now I could have flung them across the
+      bridge and taken you under the very eyes of your own men. You were rash to
+      venture so far. But if you will not venture farther, at least send me your
+      herald.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that he got down from his horse, delivered up sword and dagger to his
+      single attendant, received from the man a parchment, and came towards us,
+      opening his vizor as he advanced. Midway upon the bridge we met. His lips
+      curled in a smile of scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greetings, my strolling saint,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Through all your vagaries you
+      are at least consistent in that you ever engage your neighbour's wife to
+      bear you company in your wanderings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went hot and cold, red and white by turns. With difficulty I controlled
+      myself under that taunt&mdash;the cruellest he could have flung at me in
+      Bianca's hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your business here?&rdquo; I snarled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out the parchment, his eyes watching me intently, so that they
+      never once strayed to Bianca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read, St. Mountebank,&rdquo; he bade me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the paper, but before I lowered my eyes to it, I gave him warning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If on your part you attempt the slightest treachery,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you shall
+      be repaid in kind. My men are at the winches, and they have my orders that
+      at the first treacherous movement on your part they are to take up the
+      bridge. You will see that you could not reach the end of it in time to
+      save yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver. &ldquo;Have you
+      trapped me?&rdquo; he asked between his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;you
+      would know me incapable of such a thing. It is because I know that of the
+      Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven, a dastard
+      and a dog, that I have taken my precautions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if bound
+      hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself
+      affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take it
+      up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as most
+      fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read!&rdquo; he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well
+      warned by now, I read with confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death
+      to make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which I
+      traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This document is not exact,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I do not hold this castle
+      traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's
+      name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled. &ldquo;Persist if you are weary of life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Surrender now,
+      and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in your
+      offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This
+      Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano by
+      virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the
+      Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the
+      Emperor's Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to cast
+      you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's law and
+      man's alike.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the
+      brief to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You
+      will find him in Piacenza.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me, as if he did not understand. &ldquo;How?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I explained. &ldquo;While you have been cooling your heels in the ante-chambers
+      of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy, the world
+      hereabouts has moved a little. Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took possession
+      of Piacenza in the Emperor's name. To-day the Council will be swearing
+      fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant's hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement. Then
+      he swallowed hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Duke?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke has been in Hell these four-and-twenty hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead?&rdquo; he questioned, his voice hushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned against the rail of the bridge, his arms fallen limply to his
+      sides, one hand crushing the Pontifical parchment. Then he braced himself
+      again. He had reviewed the situation, and did not see that it hurt his
+      position, when all was said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so,&rdquo; he urged, &ldquo;what can you hope for? The Emperor himself must bow
+      before this, and do me justice.&rdquo; And he smacked the document. &ldquo;I demand my
+      wife, and my demand is backed by Pontifical authority. You are mad if you
+      think that Charles V can fail to support it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is possible that Charles V may take a different view of the memorial
+      setting forth the circumstances of your marriage, from that which the Holy
+      Father appears to have taken. I counsel you to seek the Imperial
+      Lieutenant at Piacenza without delay. Here you waste time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His lips closed with a snap. Then, at last, his eyes wandered to Bianca,
+      who stood just beside and slightly behind me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me appeal to you, Monna Bianca...&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at that I got between them. &ldquo;Are you so dead to shame,&rdquo; I roared,
+      &ldquo;that you dare address her, you pimp, you jackal, you eater of dirt? Be
+      off, or I will have this drawbridge raised and deal with you here and now,
+      in despite of Pope and Emperor and all the other powers you can invoke.
+      Away with you, then!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall pay!&rdquo; he snarled, &ldquo;By God, you shall pay!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And on that he went off, in some fear lest I should put my threat into
+      execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bianca was in a panic. &ldquo;He will do as he says.&rdquo; she cried as soon as
+      we had re-entered the courtyard. &ldquo;The Emperor cannot deny him justice. He
+      must, he must! O, Agostino, it is the end. And see to what a pass I have
+      brought you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I comforted her. I spoke brave words. I swore to hold that castle as long
+      as one stone of it stood upon another. But deep down in my heart there was
+      naught but presages of evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following day, which was Sunday, we had peace. But towards noon on
+      Monday the blow fell. An Imperial herald from Piacenza rode out to
+      Pagliano with a small escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were in the garden when word was brought us, and I bade the herald be
+      admitted. Then I looked at Bianca. She was trembling and had turned very
+      white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We spoke no word whilst they brought the messenger&mdash;a brisk fellow in
+      his black-and-yellow Austrian livery. He delivered me a sealed letter. It
+      proved to be a summons from Ferrante Gonzaga to appear upon the morrow
+      before the Imperial Court which would sit in the Communal Palace of
+      Piacenza to deliver judgment upon an indictment laid against me by Cosimo
+      d'Anguissola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the herald, hesitation in my mind and glance. He held out a
+      second letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This, my lord, I was asked by favour to deliver to you also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it, and considered the superscription:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These to the Most Noble Agostino d'Anguissola, at Pagliano.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The hand was Galeotto's. I tore it open. It contained but two lines:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon your life do not fail to obey the Imperial summons. Send Falcone to
+      me here at once.&rdquo; And it was signed&mdash;&ldquo;GALEOTTO.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is well,&rdquo; I said to the herald, &ldquo;I will not fail to attend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I bade the seneschal who stood in attendance to give the messenger
+      refreshment ere he left, and upon that dismissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we were alone I turned to Bianca. &ldquo;Galeotto bids me go,&rdquo; I said.
+      &ldquo;There is surely hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away
+      some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the
+      curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the end,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;One way or the other, it is the end. But for
+      Galeotto's letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made myself
+      an outlaw indeed. As it is&mdash;there is surely hope!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Agostino, surely, surely!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Have we not suffered enough?
+      Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours?
+      To-morrow I shall go with you to Piacenza.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; I implored her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could I remain here?&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;Could I sit here and wait? Could you
+      be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if... if the worst befalls?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I believe in God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the
+      Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes&mdash;the
+      Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not
+      their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet
+      edged with miniver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga slightly
+      above them on a raised dais, under a canopy. Behind him hung a golden
+      shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns each surmounted
+      by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a scroll
+      intertwining the pillars was charged with the motto &ldquo;PLUS ULTRA.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the back of the court stood the curious who had come to see the show,
+      held in bounds by a steel line of Spanish halberdiers. But the concourse
+      was slight, for the folk of Piacenza still had weightier matters to
+      concern them than the trial of a wife-stealer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had ridden in with an escort of twenty lances. But I left these in the
+      square when I entered the palace and formally made surrender to the
+      officer who met me. This officer led me at once into the Chamber of
+      Justice, two men-at-arms opening a lane for me through the people with the
+      butts of their pikes, so that I came into the open space before my judges,
+      and bowed profoundly to Gonzaga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coldly he returned the salutation, his prominent eyes regarding me from
+      out of that florid, crafty countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my left, but high up the room and immediately at right angles to the
+      judges' tables, sat Galeotto, full-armed. He was flanked on the one side
+      by Fra Gervasio, who greeted me with a melancholy smile, and on the other
+      by Falcone, who sat rigid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite to this group on the judges' other hand stood Cosimo. He was
+      flushed, and his eyes gleamed as they measured me with haughty triumph.
+      From me they passed to Bianca, who followed after me with her women, pale,
+      but intrepid and self-contained, her face the whiter by contrast with the
+      mourning-gown which she still wore for her father, and which it might well
+      come to pass that she should continue hereafter to wear for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not look at her again as she passed on and up towards Galeotto, who
+      had risen to receive her. He came some few steps to meet her, and escorted
+      her to a seat next to his own, so that Falcone moved down to another
+      vacant stool. Her women found place behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An usher set a chair for me, and I, too, sat down, immediately facing the
+      Emperor's Lieutenant. Then another usher in a loud voice summoned Cosimo
+      to appear and state his grievance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He advanced a step or two, when Gonzaga raised his hand, to sign to him to
+      remain where he was so that all could see him whilst he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forthwith, quickly, fluently, and lucidly, as if he had got the thing by
+      heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca de'
+      Cavalcanti by her father's consent in her father's own Castle of Pagliano;
+      how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently invested by
+      myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off his bride and
+      burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her from him, shut up
+      in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his quality as her
+      husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano against him to
+      his hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had
+      issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death, to
+      make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that it
+      was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate that I
+      had surrendered. Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy Father's
+      authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and my life
+      forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of Pagliano,
+      which he would hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you anything to say?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;When he
+      says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the night of
+      his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others abetting me, he
+      would do well to add in the interests of justice, the names of those who
+      were my abettors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo rose again. &ldquo;Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at
+      issue what caitiffs he employed?&rdquo; he asked haughtily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they were caitiffs it would not matter,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But they were not.
+      Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much.
+      The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca's own father, who, having
+      discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was
+      engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo shrugged. &ldquo;These are mere words,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth,&rdquo; I
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A prejudiced witness, indeed!&rdquo; said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga
+      nodded, whereupon my heart sank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were with
+      him?&rdquo; quoth Cosimo. &ldquo;It will no doubt assist the ends of justice, for
+      those men should be standing by him now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He checked me no more than in time. I had been on the point of citing
+      Falcone; and suddenly I perceived that to do so would be to ruin Falcone
+      without helping myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at my cousin. &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I will not name them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Falcone, however, was minded to name himself, for with a grunt he made
+      suddenly to rise. But Galeotto stretched an arm across Bianca, and forced
+      the equerry back into his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo saw and smiled. He was very sure of himself by now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord of
+      Pagliano,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in naming
+      one who is dead. Your excellency will know the precise importance to
+      attach to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again his excellency nodded. Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed? My
+      calm deserted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Messer Cosimo tell your excellency under what circumstances the Lord
+      of Pagliano died?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is yourself should be better able to inform the Court of that,&rdquo;
+       answered Cosimo quickly, &ldquo;since he died at Pagliano after you had borne
+      his daughter thither, as we have proof.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga looked at him sharply. &ldquo;Are you implying, sir, that there is a
+      further crime for which Messer Agostino d'Anguissola should be indicted?&rdquo;
+       he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo shrugged and pursed his lips. &ldquo;I will not go so far, since the
+      matter of Ettore Cavalcanti's death does not immediately concern me.
+      Besides, there is enough contained in the indictment as it stands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The imputation was none the less terrible, and could not fail of an effect
+      upon the minds of the Ten. I was in despair, for at every question it
+      seemed that the tide of destruction rose higher about me. I deemed myself
+      irrevocably lost. The witnesses I might have called were as good as
+      gagged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet there was one last question in my quiver&mdash;a question which I
+      thought must crumple up his confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell his excellency where you were upon your marriage night?&rdquo; I
+      cried hoarsely, my temples throbbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Superbly Cosimo looked round at the Court; he shrugged, and shook his head
+      as if in utter pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave it to your excellency to say where a man should be upon his
+      marriage night,&rdquo; he said, with an astounding impudence, and there were
+      some who tittered in the crowd behind me. &ldquo;Let me again beg your
+      excellency and your worthinesses to pass to judgment, and so conclude this
+      foolish comedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga nodded gravely, as if entirely approving, whilst with a fat
+      jewelled hand he stroked his ample chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, too, think that it is time,&rdquo; he said, whereupon Cosimo, with a sigh of
+      relief, would have resumed his seat but that I stayed him with the last
+      thing I had to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I cried, appealing to Gonzaga, &ldquo;the true events of that night
+      are set forth in a memorial of which two copies were drawn up, one for the
+      Pope and the other for your excellency, as the Emperor's vicegerent. Shall
+      I recite its contents&mdash;that Messer Cosimo may be examined upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not necessary,&rdquo; came Gonzaga's icy voice. &ldquo;The memorial is here
+      before me.&rdquo; And he tapped a document upon the table. Then he fixed his
+      prominent eyes upon Cosimo. &ldquo;You are aware of its contents?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo bowed, and Galeotto moved at last, for the first time since the
+      trial's inception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until now he had sat like a carved image, save when he had thrust out a
+      hand to restrain Falcone, and his attitude had filled me with an
+      unspeakable dread. But at this moment he leaned forward turning an ear
+      towards Cosimo, as if anxious not to miss a single word that the man might
+      utter. And Cosimo, intent as he was, did not observe the movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw its fellow at the Vatican,&rdquo; said my cousin, &ldquo;and since the Pope in
+      his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it
+      bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your
+      excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola before you here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thus is that memorial disposed of as a false and lying document.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said Gonzaga thoughtfully, his heavy lip between thumb and
+      forefinger, &ldquo;it bears, amongst others, the signature of the Lord of
+      Pagliano's confessor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without violation of the seal of the confessional, it is impossible for
+      that friar to testify,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;And the Holy Father cannot grant
+      him dispensation for so much. His signature, therefore, stands for
+      nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed a moment's silence. The Ten whispered among themselves. But
+      Gonzaga never consulted them by so much as a glance. They appeared to
+      serve none but a decorative office in that Court of his, for they bore no
+      share in the dispensing of a justice of which he constituted himself the
+      sole arbiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the Governor spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems, indeed, that there is no more to say and the Court has a clear
+      course before it, since the Emperor cannot contravene the mandates of the
+      Holy See. Nothing remains, then, but to deliver sentence; unless...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, and his eyes singularly sly, his lips pursed almost humorously,
+      he turned his glance upon Galeotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ser Cosimo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;has pronounced this memorial a false and lying
+      document. Is there anything that you, Messer Galeotto, as its author, can
+      have to tell the Court?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly the condottiero rose, his great scarred face very solemn, his
+      eyes brooding. He advanced almost to the very centre of the table, so that
+      he all but stood immediately before Gonzaga, yet sideways, so that I had
+      him in profile, whilst he fully faced Cosimo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo at least had ceased to smile. His handsome white face had lost some
+      of its supercilious confidence. Here was something unexpected, something
+      upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not provided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?&rdquo; he demanded harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience,&rdquo; Gonzaga
+      answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some of
+      Cosimo's uneasiness must have been dissipated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a
+      word of what was to follow. The blood that had earlier surged to my face
+      had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which
+      you acted in summoning hither the accused?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto's hands. The
+      condottiero studied it, frowning. Then he smote it sharply with his right
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This document is not in order,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now,
+      convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are here described as Cosimo d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and
+      Carmina. These titles are not yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo's cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi,&rdquo; he
+      replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga spoke. &ldquo;The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke, and
+      the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by Imperial
+      decree. All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible to their
+      original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to Caesar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo continued to smile. &ldquo;This is no matter of a confiscation effected
+      by Duke Pier Luigi,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The confiscation and my own investiture in
+      the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d'Anguissola's
+      recreancy&mdash;at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is
+      expressly announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and in the
+      brief which lies before your excellency. Nor was such express announcement
+      necessary, for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to the Tyranny of
+      Mondolfo, it follows that upon his being outlawed and his life forfeit I
+      enter upon my succession.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated. But Galeotto showed no sign
+      of defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is this bull you speak of?&rdquo; he demanded, as though he were the
+      judge himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga. &ldquo;Does your excellency ask to
+      see it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Assuredly,&rdquo; said Gonzaga shortly. &ldquo;I may not take your word for its
+      existence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet,
+      unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood near
+      Galeotto&mdash;not more than an arm's length between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto. &ldquo;It seems in order,&rdquo;
+       he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he
+      looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre
+      now wore a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is as irregular as the other,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is entirely worthless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worthless?&rdquo; quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful. &ldquo;But
+      have I not already explained...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It sets forth here,&rdquo; cut in Galeotto with assurance, &ldquo;that the fief of
+      Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola. Now I
+      submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses,&rdquo; he added, turning
+      aside, &ldquo;that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since Mondolfo
+      and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola, and could no
+      more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the back of a naked
+      man&mdash;unless,&rdquo; he added, sneering, &ldquo;a papal bull is capable of
+      miracles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of the
+      enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court the
+      silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong&mdash;that they never
+      were the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I say,&rdquo; returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and
+      formidable in his gleaming armour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To whom, then, did they belong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola&mdash;Agostino's father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his
+      countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What folly is this?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia
+      eight years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has
+      left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own
+      son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi
+      lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar
+      which for thirteen years has served him for a mask.&rdquo; And he pointed to his
+      own face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni
+      d'Anguissola&mdash;my father! And my heart had never told me so!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should
+      have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had mentioned
+      as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could have been
+      myself?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the
+      hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me
+      from Pope and Pope's bastards; now that I have accomplished my life's
+      work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth
+      again and resume the state that is my own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true
+      identity; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and
+      there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me when I
+      lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at Perugia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against my
+      son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and get
+      them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina other
+      than myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by this
+      shattering blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But after
+      being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he mistrusted
+      now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with as a mouse by
+      this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice,&rdquo; purred the
+      Lieutenant. &ldquo;There is this memorial, my lord,&rdquo; he said, and tapped the
+      document, his eyes upon my father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand, it
+      can, I think, be done,&rdquo; he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose
+      names are here cannot be admitted to testify.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. &ldquo;Do you defy the Pope?&rdquo; he
+      thundered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If necessary,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I have done so all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. &ldquo;It is not I who have branded this memorial
+      false,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but the Holy Father himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Emperor,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;may opine that in this matter the Holy
+      Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is
+      myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted to
+      me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his
+      confessor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We cannot admit the confessor,&rdquo; Gonzaga thrust in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor
+      that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession
+      followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal of
+      Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial alike
+      before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight,&rdquo; he continued in a
+      ringing voice, &ldquo;that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore
+      Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those
+      others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's vicegerent, to
+      accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+      who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a deed&mdash;for it involved
+      the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that you lie!&rdquo; screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at
+      his throat and brow swelling like ropes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.
+      Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the
+      fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very
+      calm again after his late furious mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be it so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to
+      prove it upon my body.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the skin
+      was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of
+      the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir
+      there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry&mdash;however
+      much they might be falling now into desuetude&mdash;if Cosimo took up the
+      glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men
+      must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him. He&mdash;who
+      had come to this court so confidently&mdash;had walked into a trap. He saw
+      it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered
+      him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the glove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon your body, then&mdash;God helping me,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught
+      his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me! Father, let me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed
+      moist and singularly soft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son!&rdquo; he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's
+      caress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father!&rdquo; I answered him, a knot in my throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca to the
+      Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail. Gervasio
+      shall go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;will you determine when and where this battle is to
+      be fought?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon the instant,&rdquo; answered my father, &ldquo;on the banks of Po with a score
+      of lances to keep the lists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. &ldquo;Do you agree to this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be too soon for me,&rdquo; replied the quivering Cosimo, black hatred
+      in his glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be it so, then,&rdquo; said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My father pressed my hand again. &ldquo;To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come,&rdquo; he
+      said, and on that we parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders. In so far as it concerned
+      myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to the
+      Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made my way
+      through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where my
+      lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight of
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We
+      knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's
+      lowest step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the
+      church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my
+      young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings in
+      the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother
+      who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity. But
+      my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as
+      she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very
+      mockery of what she strove to make me&mdash;a strolling saint, indeed, as
+      Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought after holiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this
+      altar, as I knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the
+      heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year at
+      Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife. That cross
+      of penitence&mdash;so singularly condign to my sin&mdash;I had borne with
+      fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon
+      and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was
+      complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that
+      pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this pure
+      maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had come to
+      learn that Love&mdash;God's greatest gift&mdash;is the great sanctifier of
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I did
+      not for a moment doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He
+      smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared to
+      look at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him followed
+      Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let the will of Heaven be done,&rdquo; said my father. And Gervasio came down
+      to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.
+    </p>
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STROLLING SAINT ***</div>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #3423 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3423)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strolling Saint, by Raphael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Strolling Saint
+
+Author: Raphael Sabatini
+
+Posting Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #3423]
+Release Date: September, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STROLLING SAINT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Stuart Middleton
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STROLLING SAINT
+
+Being the Confessions of the High & Mighty Agostino D'Anguissola Tyrant
+of Mondolfo & Lord of Carmina, in the State of Piacenza
+
+By Raphael Sabatini
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+     BOOK ONE
+
+     THE OBLATE
+
+
+     CHAPTER
+
+         I.  NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+        II.  GINO FALCONE
+
+       III.  THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+        IV.  LUISINA
+
+         V.  REBELLION
+
+        VI.  FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+
+     BOOK TWO
+
+     GIULIANA
+
+
+         I.  THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI
+
+        II.  HUMANITIES
+
+       III.  PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+        IV.  MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+         V.  PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+        VI.  THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+
+     BOOK THREE
+
+     THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+         I.  THE HOME-COMING
+
+        II.  THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+       III.  GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+        IV.  THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+         V.  THE RENUNCIATION
+
+        VI.  HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+       VII.  INTRUDERS
+
+      VIII.  THE VISION
+
+        IX.  THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+
+     BOOK FOUR
+
+     THE WORLD
+
+
+         I.  PAGLIANO
+
+        II.  THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+       III.  PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+        IV.  MADONNA BIANCA
+
+         V.  THE WARNING
+
+        VI.  THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+       VII.  THE PAPAL BULL
+
+      VIII.  THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+        IX.  THE RETURN
+
+         X.  THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+        XI.  THE PENANCE
+
+       XII.  BLOOD
+
+      XIII.  THE OVERTHROW
+
+       XIV.  THE CITATION
+
+        XV.  THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I. THE OBLATE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+
+In seeking other than in myself--as men will--the causes of my
+tribulations, I have often inclined to lay the blame of much of the ill
+that befell me, and the ill that in my sinful life I did to others, upon
+those who held my mother at the baptismal font and concerted that she
+should bear the name of Monica.
+
+There are in life many things which, in themselves, seeming to the
+vulgar and the heedless to be trivial and without consequence, may yet
+be causes pregnant of terrible effects, mainsprings of Destiny itself.
+Amid such portentous trifles I would number the names so heedlessly
+bestowed upon us.
+
+It surprises me that in none of the philosophic writings of the learned
+scholars of antiquity can I find that this matter of names has been
+touched upon, much less given the importance of which I account it to be
+deserving.
+
+Possibly it is because no one of them ever suffered, as I have suffered,
+from the consequences of a name. Had it but been so, they might in their
+weighty and impressive manner have set down a lesson on the subject,
+and so relieved me--who am all-conscious of my shortcomings in this
+direction-from the necessity of repairing that omission out of my own
+experience.
+
+Let it then, even at this late hour, be considered what a subtle
+influence for good or ill, what a very mould of character may lie within
+a name.
+
+To the dull clod of earth, perhaps, or, again, to the truly
+strong-minded nature that is beyond such influences, it can matter
+little that he be called Alexander or Achilles; and once there was a man
+named Judas who fell so far short of the noble associations of that name
+that he has changed for all time the very sound and meaning of it.
+
+But to him who has been endowed with imagination--that greatest boon and
+greatest affliction of mankind--or whose nature is such as to crave for
+models, the name he bears may become a thing portentous by the images
+it conjures up of some mighty dead who bore it erstwhile and whose life
+inspires to emulation.
+
+Whatever may be accounted the general value of this premiss, at least as
+it concerns my mother I shall hope to prove it apt.
+
+They named her Monica. Why the name was chosen I have never learnt; but
+I do not conceive that there was any reason for the choice other than
+the taste of her parents in the matter of sounds. It is a pleasing
+enough name, euphoniously considered, and beyond that--as is so commonly
+the case--no considerations were taken into account.
+
+To her, however, at once imaginative and of a feeble and dependent
+spirit, the name was fateful. St. Monica was made the special object of
+her devotions in girlhood, and remained so later when she became a wife.
+The Life of St. Monica was the most soiled and fingered portion of an
+old manuscript collection of the life histories of a score or so of
+saints that was one of her dearest possessions. To render herself worthy
+of the name she bore, to model her life upon that of the sainted woman
+who had sorrowed and rejoiced so much in her famous offspring, became
+the obsession of my mother's soul. And but that St. Monica had wed and
+borne a son, I do not believe that my mother would ever have adventured
+herself within the bonds of wedlock.
+
+How often in the stressful, stormy hours of my most unhappy youth did I
+not wish that she had preferred the virginal life of the cloister, and
+thus spared me the heavy burden of an existence which her unholy and
+mistaken saintliness went so near to laying waste!
+
+I like to think that in the days when my father wooed her, she forgot
+for a spell in the strong arms of that fierce ghibelline the pattern
+upon which it had become her wont to weave her life; so that in all
+that drab, sackcloth tissue there was embroidered at least one warm and
+brilliant little wedge of colour; so that in all that desert waste, in
+all that parched aridity of her existence, there was at least one little
+patch of garden-land, fragrant, fruitful, and cool.
+
+I like to think it, for at best such a spell must have been brief
+indeed; and for that I pity her--I, who once blamed her so very
+bitterly. Before ever I was born it must have ceased; whilst still she
+bore me she put from her lips the cup that holds the warm and
+potent wine of life, and turned her once more to her fasting, her
+contemplations, and her prayers.
+
+That was in the year in which the battle of Pavia was fought and won by
+the Emperor. My father, who had raised a condotta to lend a hand in the
+expulsion of the French, was left for dead upon that glorious field.
+Afterwards he was found still living, but upon the very edge and border
+of Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have
+little doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation--a punishment
+upon her for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence
+from the narrow flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the
+footsteps of Holy Monica.
+
+How much the love of my father may still have swayed her I do not know.
+But to me it seems that in what next she did there was more of duty,
+more of penitence, more of reparation for the sin of having been a woman
+as God made her, than of love. Indeed, I almost know this to be so. In
+delicate health as she was, she bade her people prepare a litter for
+her, and so she had herself carried into Piacenza, to the Church of St.
+Augustine. There, having confessed and received the Sacrament, upon her
+knees before a minor altar consecrated to St. Monica, she made solemn
+vow that if my father's life was spared she would devote the unborn
+child she carried to the service of God and Holy Church.
+
+Two months thereafter word was brought her that my father, his recovery
+by now well-nigh complete, was making his way home.
+
+On the morrow was I born--a votive offering, an oblate, ere yet I had
+drawn the breath of life.
+
+It has oft diverted me to conjecture what would have chanced had I been
+born a girl--since that could have afforded her no proper parallel. In
+the circumstance that I was a boy, I have no faintest doubt but that she
+saw a Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and most
+natural happenings. It was as it should be; it was as it had been with
+the Sainted Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk. Monica
+had borne a son, and he had been named Augustine. It was very well. My
+name, too, should be Augustine, that I might walk in the ways of that
+other Augustine, that great theologian whose mother's name was Monica.
+
+And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
+the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me. It was made to do
+so. Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint--with such
+castrations as my tender years demanded--was told me and repeated until
+I knew by heart its every incident and act. Anon his writings were my
+school-books. His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at
+which I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
+
+And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my
+life, that was intended to have been so different, it is from
+his Confessions that I have gathered inspiration to set down my
+own--although betwixt the two you may discern little indeed that is
+comparable.
+
+I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my
+father's life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound. That
+restoration she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than
+she was, she must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the
+end. For betwixt my father and my mother I became from my earliest years
+a subject of contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost
+in enmity the one against the other.
+
+I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
+Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the
+seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of
+our renegade, guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?
+
+I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear
+him reasoning, upbraiding, storming. But he was as an ocean of energy
+hurling himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic
+obstinacy. She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would
+suffer tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled. And
+hers was a manner against which that strong man, my father, never
+could prevail. She would stand before him white-faced and mute, never
+presuming to return an answer to his pleading or to enter into argument.
+
+"I have vowed," she would say, just once; and thereafter, avoiding his
+fiery glance, she would bow her head meekly, fold her hands, the very
+incarnation of long-suffering and martyrdom.
+
+Anon, as the storm of his anger crashed about her, two glistening lines
+would appear upon her pallid face, and her tears--horrid, silent weeping
+that brought no trace of emotion to her countenance--showered down. At
+that he would fling out of her presence and away, cursing the day in
+which he had mated with a fool.
+
+His hatred of these moods of hers, of the vow she had made which bade
+fair to deprive him of his son, drove him ere long to hatred of the
+cause of it all. A ghibelline by inheritance, he was not long in
+becoming an utter infidel, at war with Rome and the Pontifical sway.
+Nor was he one to content himself with passive enmity. He must be up and
+doing, seeking the destruction of the thing he hated. And so it befell
+that upon the death of Pope Clement (the second Medici Pontiff),
+profiting by the weak condition from which the papal army had not yet
+recovered since the Emperor's invasion and the sack of Rome, my father
+raised an army and attempted to shatter the ancient yoke which Julius II
+had imposed upon Parma and Piacenza when he took them from the State of
+Milan.
+
+A little lad of seven was I at the time, and well do I remember the
+martial stir and bustle there was about our citadel of Mondolfo, the
+armed multitudes that thronged the fortress that was our home, or
+drilled and manoeuvred upon the green plains beyond the river.
+
+I was all wonder-stricken and fascinated by the sight. My blood was
+quickened by the brazen notes of their trumpets, and to balance a pike
+in my hands was to procure me the oddest and most exquisite thrills that
+I had known. But my mother, perceiving with alarm the delight afforded
+me by such warlike matters, withdrew me so that I might see as little as
+possible of it all.
+
+And there followed scenes between her and my father of which hazy
+impressions linger in my memory. No longer was she a mute statue,
+enduring with fearful stoicism his harsh upbraidings. She was turned
+into a suppliant, now fierce, now lachrymose; by her prayers, by her
+prophecies of the evil that must attend his ungodly aims, she strove
+with all her poor, feeble might to turn him from the path of revolt to
+which he had set his foot.
+
+And he would listen now in silence, his face grim and sardonic; and when
+from very weariness the flow of her inspired oratory began to falter, he
+would deliver ever the same answer.
+
+"It is you who have driven me to this; and this is no more than a
+beginning. You have made a vow--an outrageous votive offering of
+something that is not yours to bestow. That vow you cannot break, you
+say. Be it so. But I must seek a remedy elsewhere. To save my son from
+the Church to which you would doom him, I will, ere I have done, tear
+down the Church and make an end of it in Italy."
+
+And at that she would shrivel up before him with a little moan of
+horror, taking her poor white face in her hands.
+
+"Blasphemer!" she would cry in mingled terror and aversion, and upon
+that word--the "Amen" to all their conferences in those last days they
+spent together--she would turn, and dragging me with her, all stunned
+and bewildered by something beyond my understanding, she would hurry
+me to the chapel of the citadel, and there, before the high altar,
+prostrate herself and spend long hours in awful sobbing intercessions.
+
+And so the gulf between them widened until the day of his departure.
+
+I was not present at their parting. What farewells may have been spoken
+between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the other that
+they were destined never to meet again, I do not know.
+
+I remember being rudely awakened one dark morning early in the year,
+and lifted from my bed by arms to whose clasp I never failed to thrill.
+Close to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of
+great eyes, humid with tears, considered me passionately. Then a ringing
+voice--that commanding voice that was my father's--spoke to Falcone, the
+man-at-arms who attended him and who ever acted as his equerry.
+
+"Shall we take him with us to the wars, Falcone?"
+
+My little arms went round his neck and tightened there convulsively
+until the steel rim of his gorget bit into them.
+
+"Take me!" I sobbed. "Take me!"
+
+He laughed for answer, with something of exultation in his voice. He
+swung me to his shoulder, and held me poised there, looking up at me.
+And then he laughed again.
+
+"Dost hear the whelp?" he cried to Falcone. "Still with his milk-teeth
+in his head, and already does he yelp for battle!"
+
+Then he looked up at me again, and swore one of his great oaths.
+
+"I can trust you, son of mine," he laughed. "They'll never make a
+shaveling of you. When your thews are grown it will not be on thuribles
+they'll spend their strength, or I'm a liar else. Be patient yet awhile,
+and we shall ride together, never doubt it."
+
+With that he pulled me down again to kiss me, and he clasped me to his
+breast so that the studs of his armour remained stamped upon my tender
+flesh after he had departed.
+
+The next instant he was gone, and I lay weeping, a very lonely little
+child.
+
+But in the revolt that he led he had not reckoned upon the might and
+vigour of the new Farnese Pontiff. He had conceived, perhaps, that one
+pope must be as supine as another, and that Paul III would prove no more
+redoubtable than Clement VIII. To his bitter cost did he discover his
+mistake. Beyond the Po he was surprised by the Pontifical army under
+Ferrante Orsini, and there his force was cut to pieces.
+
+My father himself escaped and with him some other gentlemen of Piacenza,
+notably one of the scions of the great house of Pallavicini, who took a
+wound in the leg which left him lame for life, so that ever after he was
+known as Pallavicini il Zopo.
+
+They were all under the pope's ban, outlaws with a price upon the head
+of each, hunted and harried from State to State by the papal emissaries,
+so that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed,
+within the State of Piacenza, which had been rudely punished for the
+insubordination it had permitted to be reared upon its soil.
+
+And Mondolfo went near to suffering confiscation. Assuredly it would
+have suffered it but for the influence exerted on my mother's and my own
+behalf by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere,
+seconded by that guelphic cousin of my father's, Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+who, after me, was heir to Mondolfo, and had, therefore, good reason not
+to see it confiscated to the Holy See.
+
+Thus it fell out that we were left in peace and not made to suffer from
+my father's rebellion. For that, he himself should suffer when taken.
+But taken he never was. From time to time we had news of him. Now he was
+in Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for
+his safety's sake. And then one night, six years later, a scarred and
+grizzled veteran, coming none knew whence, dropped from exhaustion in
+the courtyard of our citadel, whither he had struggled. Some went to
+minister to him, and amongst these there was a groom who recognized him.
+
+"It is Messer Falcone!" he cried, and ran to bear the news to my mother,
+with whom I was at table at the time. With us, too, was Fra Gervasio,
+our chaplain.
+
+It was grim news that old Falcone brought us. He had never quitted my
+father in those six weary years of wandering until now that my father
+was beyond the need of his or any other's service.
+
+There had been a rising and a bloody battle at Perugia, Falcone informed
+us. An attempt had been made to overthrow the rule there of Pier Luigi
+Farnese, Duke of Castro, the pope's own abominable son. For some months
+my father had been enjoying the shelter of the Perugians, and he had
+repaid their hospitality by joining them and bearing arms with them in
+the ill-starred blow they struck for liberty. They had been crushed in
+the encounter by the troops of Pier Luigi, and my father had been among
+the slain.
+
+And well was it for him that he came by so fine and merciful an end,
+thought I, when I had heard the tale of horrors that had been undergone
+by the unfortunates who had fallen into the hands of Farnese.
+
+My mother heard him to the end without any sign of emotion. She
+sat there, cold and impassive as a thing of marble, what time Fra
+Gervasio--who was my father's foster-brother, as you shall presently
+learn more fully--sank his head upon his arm and wept like a child to
+hear the piteous tale of it. And whether from force of example, whether
+from the memories that came to me so poignantly in that moment of a fine
+strong man with a brown, shaven face and a jovial, mighty voice, who had
+promised me that one day we should ride together, I fell a-weeping too.
+
+When the tale was done, my mother coldly gave orders that Falcone be
+cared for, and went to pray, taking me with her.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered what was the tenour of her prayers that
+night. Were they for the rest of the great turbulent soul that was
+gone forth in sin, in arms against the Holy Church, excommunicate and
+foredoomed to Hell? Or were they of thanksgiving that at last she was
+completely mistress of my destinies, her mind at rest, since no longer
+need she fear opposition to her wishes concerning me? I do not know, nor
+will I do her the possible injustice that I should were I to guess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. GINO FALCONE
+
+
+When I think of my mother now I do not see her as she appeared in any
+of the scenes that already I have set down. There is one picture of her
+that is burnt as with an acid upon my memory, a picture which the mere
+mention of her name, the mere thought of her, never fails to evoke like
+a ghost before me. I see her always as she appeared one evening when she
+came suddenly and without warning upon Falcone and me in the armoury of
+the citadel.
+
+I see her again, a tall, slight, graceful woman, her oval face of the
+translucent pallor of wax, framed in a nun-like coif, over which was
+thrown a long black veil that fell to her waist and there joined the
+black unrelieved draperies that she always wore. This sable garb was no
+mere mourning for my father. His death had made as little change in
+her apparel as in her general life. It had been ever thus as far as my
+memory can travel; always had her raiment been the same, those trailing
+funereal draperies. Again I see them, and that pallid face with its
+sunken eyes, around which there were great brown patches that seemed to
+intensify the depth at which they were set and the sombre lustre of them
+on the rare occasions when she raised them; those slim, wax-like hands,
+with a chaplet of beads entwined about the left wrist and hanging thence
+to a silver crucifix at the end.
+
+She moved almost silently, as a ghost; and where she passed she seemed
+to leave a trail of sorrow and sadness in her wake, just as a worldly
+woman leaves a trail of perfume.
+
+Thus looked she when she came upon us there that evening, and thus will
+she live for ever in my memory, for that was the first time that I knew
+rebellion against the yoke she was imposing upon me; the first time that
+our wills clashed, hers and mine; and as a consequence, maybe, was it
+the first time that I considered her with purpose and defined her to
+myself.
+
+The thing befell some three months after the coming of Falcone to
+Mondolfo.
+
+That the old man-at-arms should have exerted a strong attraction upon
+my young mind, you will readily understand. His intimate connection with
+that dimly remembered father, who stood secretly in my imagination in
+the position that my mother would have had St. Augustine occupy, drew me
+to his equerry like metal to a lodestone.
+
+And this attraction was reciprocal. Of his own accord old Falcone sought
+me out, lingering in my neighbourhood at first like a dog that looks for
+a kindly word. He had not long to wait. Daily we had our meetings and
+our talks and daily did these grow in length; and they were stolen hours
+of which I said no word to my mother, nor did others for a season, so
+that all was well.
+
+Our talks were naturally of my father, and it was through Falcone that
+I came to know something of the greatness of that noble-souled, valiant
+gentleman, whom the old servant painted for me as one who combined with
+the courage of the lion the wiliness of the fox.
+
+He discoursed of their feats of arms together, he described charges
+of horse that set my nerves a-tingle as in fancy I heard the blare
+of trumpets and the deafening thunder of hooves upon the turf. Of
+escalades, of surprises, of breaches stormed, of camisades and ambushes,
+of dark treacheries and great heroisms did he descant to fire my
+youthful fancy, to fill me first with delight, and then with frenzy when
+I came to think that in all these things my life must have no part, that
+for me another road was set--a grey, gloomy road at the end of which was
+dangled a reward which did not greatly interest me.
+
+And then one day from fighting as an endeavour, as a pitting of force
+against force and astuteness against astuteness, he came to talk of
+fighting as an art.
+
+It was from old Falcone that first I heard of Marozzo, that
+miracle-worker in weapons, that master at whose academy in Bologna the
+craft of swordsmanship was to be acquired, so that from fighting with
+his irons as a beast with its claws, by sheer brute strength and brute
+instinct, man might by practised skill and knowledge gain advantages
+against which mere strength must spend itself in vain.
+
+What he told me amazed me beyond anything that I had ever heard, even
+from himself, and what he told me he illustrated, flinging himself into
+the poises taught by Marozzo that I might appreciate the marvellous
+science of the thing.
+
+Thus was it that for the first time I made the acquaintance--an
+acquaintance held by few men in those days--of those marvellous guards
+of Marozzo's devising; Falcone showed me the difference between the
+mandritto and the roverso, the false edge and the true, the stramazone
+and the tondo; and he left me spellbound by that marvellous guard
+appropriately called by Marozzo the iron girdle--a low guard on the
+level of the waist, which on the very parry gives an opening for the
+point, so that in one movement you may ward and strike.
+
+At last, when I questioned him, he admitted that during their
+wanderings, my father, with that recklessness that alternated curiously
+with his caution, had ventured into the city of Bologna notwithstanding
+that it was a Papal fief, for the sole purpose of studying with Marozzo
+that Falcone himself had daily accompanied him, witnessed the lessons,
+and afterwards practised with my father, so that he had come to learn
+most of the secrets that Marozzo taught.
+
+One day, at last, very timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of
+his utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself
+without the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something
+of Marozzo's art with real weapons.
+
+I had feared a rebuff. I had thought that even old Falcone might laugh
+at one predestined to the study of theology, desiring to enter into the
+mysteries of sword-craft. But my fears were far indeed from having a
+foundation. There was no laughter in the equerry's grey eyes, whilst
+the smile upon his lips was a smile of gladness, of eagerness, almost of
+thankfulness to see me so set.
+
+And so it came to pass that daily thereafter did we practise for an hour
+or so in the armoury with sword and buckler, and with every lesson
+my proficiency with the iron grew in a manner that Falcone termed
+prodigious, swearing that I was born to the sword, that the knack of it
+was in the very blood of me.
+
+It may be that affection for me caused him to overrate the progress that
+I made and the aptitude I showed; it may even be that what he said was
+no more than the good-natured flattery of one who loved me and would
+have me take pleasure in myself. And yet when I look back at the lad I
+was, I incline to think that he spoke no more than sober truth.
+
+I have alluded to the curious, almost inexplicable delight it afforded
+me to feel in my hands the balance of a pike for the first time. Fain
+would I tell you something of all that I felt when first my fingers
+closed about a sword-hilt, the forefinger passed over the quillons in
+the new manner, as Falcone showed me. But it defies all power of words.
+The sweet seduction of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the
+blade, were things that thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of
+the first kiss of passion. It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can
+think of nothing else in life that is worthy of being compared with it.
+
+I was at the time a lad in my thirteenth year, but I was well-grown and
+strong beyond my age, despite the fact that my mother had restrained me
+from all those exercises of horsemanship, of arms, and of wrestling by
+which boys of my years attain development. I stood almost as tall then
+as Falcone himself--who was accounted of a good height--and if my
+reach fell something short of his, I made up for this by the youthful
+quickness of my movements; so that soon--unless out of good nature he
+refrained from exerting his full vigour--I found myself Falcone's match.
+
+Fra Gervasio, who was then my tutor, and with whom my mornings were
+spent in perfecting my Latin and giving me the rudiments of Greek, soon
+had his suspicions of where the hour of the siesta was spent by me with
+old Falcone. But the good, saintly man held his peace, a matter which at
+that time intrigued me. Others there were, however, who thought well to
+bear the tale of our doings to my mother, and thus it happened that she
+came upon us that day in the armoury, each of us in shirt and breeches
+at sword-and-target play.
+
+We fell apart upon her entrance, each with a guilty feeling, like
+children caught in a forbidden orchard, for all that Falcone held
+himself proudly erect, his grizzled head thrown back, his eyes cold and
+hard.
+
+A long while it seemed ere she spoke, and once or twice I shot her a
+furtive comprehensive glance, and saw her as I shall ever see her to my
+dying day.
+
+Her eyes were upon me. I do not believe that she gave Falcone a single
+thought at first. It was at me only that she looked, and with such a
+sorrow in her glance to see me so vigorous and lusty, as surely could
+not have been fetched there by the sight of my corpse itself. Her lips
+moved awhile in silence; and whether she was at her everlasting prayers,
+or whether she was endeavouring to speak but could not for emotion, I do
+not know. At last her voice came, laden with a chill reproach.
+
+"Agostino!" she said, and waited as if for some answer from me.
+
+It was in that instant that rebellion stirred in me. Her coming had
+turned me cold, for all that my body was overheated from the exercise
+and I was sweating furiously. Now, at the sound of her voice, something
+of the injustice that oppressed me, something of the unreasoning bigotry
+that chained and fettered me, stood clear before my mental vision
+for the first time. It warmed me again with the warmth of sullen
+indignation. I returned her no answer beyond a curtly respectful
+invitation that she should speak her mind, couched--as had been her
+reproof--in a single word of address.
+
+"Madonna?" I challenged, and emulating something of old Falcone's
+attitude, I drew myself erect, flung back my head, and brought my eyes
+to the level of her own by an effort of will such as I had never yet
+exerted.
+
+It was, I think, the bravest thing I ever did. I felt, in doing it, as
+one feels who has nerved himself to enter fire. And when the thing was
+done, the ease of it surprised me. There followed no catastrophe such as
+I expected. Before my glance, grown suddenly so very bold, her own eyes
+drooped and fell away as was her habit. She spoke thereafter without
+looking at me, in that cold, emotionless voice that was peculiar to her
+always, the voice of one in whom the founts of all that is sweet and
+tolerant and tender in life are for ever frozen.
+
+"What are you doing with weapons, Agostino?" she asked me.
+
+"As you see, madam mother, I am at practice," I answered, and out of
+the corner of my eye I caught the grim approving twitch of old Falcone's
+lips.
+
+"At practice?" she echoed, dully as one who does not understand. Then
+very slowly she shook her sorrowful head. "Men practise what they must
+one day perform, Agostino. To your books, then, and leave swords for
+bloody men, nor ever let me see you again with weapons in your hands if
+you respect me."
+
+"Had you not come hither, madam mother, you had been spared the sight
+to-day," I answered with some lingering spark of my rebellious fire
+still smouldering.
+
+"It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities
+before they take too strong a hold upon you," answered she. "Lay down
+those weapons."
+
+Had she been angry, I think I could have withstood her. Anger in her at
+such a time must have been as steel upon the flint of my own nature. But
+against that incarnation of sorrow and sadness, my purpose, my strength
+of character were turned to water. By similar means had she ever
+prevailed with my poor father. And I had, too, the habit of obedience
+which is not so lightly broken as I had at first accounted possible.
+
+Sullenly then I set down my sword upon a bench that stood against the
+wall, and my target with it. As I turned aside to do so, her gloomy eyes
+were poised for an instant upon Falcone, who stood grim and silent. Then
+they were lowered again ere she began to address him.
+
+"You have done very ill, Falcone," said she. "You have abused my trust
+in you, and you have sought to pervert my son and to lead him into ways
+of evil."
+
+He started under that reproof like a fiery stallion under the spur. His
+face flushed scarlet. The habit of obedience may have been strong in
+Falcone too; but it was obedience to men; with women he had never had
+much to do, old warrior though he was. Moreover, in this he felt that an
+affront had been put upon the memory of Giovanni d'Anguissola, who was
+my father and who went nigh to being Falcone's god. And this his answer
+plainly showed.
+
+"The ways into which I lead your son, Madonna," said he in a low voice
+that boomed up and echoed in the groined ceiling overhead, "are the
+ways that were trod by my lord his father. And who says that the ways
+of Giovanni d'Anguissola were evil ways lies foully, be he man or
+woman, patrician or villein, pope or devil." And upon that he paused
+magnificently, his eyes aflash.
+
+She shuddered under his rough speech. Then answered without looking up,
+and with no trace of anger in her voice:
+
+"You are restored to health and strength by now, Messer Falcone. The
+seneschal shall have orders to pay you ten gold ducats in discharge of
+all that may be still your due from us. See that by night you have left
+Mondolfo."
+
+And then, without changing her deadly inflection, or even making a
+noticeable pause, "Come, Agostino," she commanded.
+
+But I did not move. Her words had fixed me there with horror. I heard
+from Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob. I dared not
+look at him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and
+self-contained.
+
+What would he do, what would he say? Oh, she had done a cruel, a
+bitterly cruel wrong. This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched
+from wounds that he had taken in my father's service, to be turned
+away in his old age, as we should not have turned away a dog! It was a
+monstrous thing. Mondolfo was his home. The Anguissola were his family,
+and their honour was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of
+his own. To cast him out thus!
+
+All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time,
+as I waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that
+dismissal.
+
+He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that,
+without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old
+Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
+
+Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise. And
+then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that
+I had looked for. Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he
+dropped on one knee before me.
+
+"My lord!" he cried, and before he added another word I knew already
+what else he was about to say. For never yet had I been so addressed in
+my lordship of Mondolfo. To all there I was just the Madonnino. But to
+Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.
+
+"My lord," he said, then. "Is it your wish that I should go?"
+
+I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother's
+voice came cold and acid.
+
+"The Madonnino's wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone. It is I
+who order your departure."
+
+Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued
+to address himself to me.
+
+"You are the master here, my lord," he urged. "You are the law in
+Mondolfo. You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your
+will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail."
+
+He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain
+before me all these months, yet which I had not seen.
+
+"I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord," he added; and then,
+almost in a snarl of defiance, "I obey none other," he concluded, "nor
+pope nor devil."
+
+"Agostino, I am waiting for you," came my mother's voice from the
+doorway.
+
+Something had me by the throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone
+was the tempter. More than that was he--though how much more I did not
+dream, nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who
+showed me the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow
+I might shiver the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the
+cobwebs that they were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my
+will; and to my undoing was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My
+regrets for him went near to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet
+even these fell short.
+
+I would to God I had given heed to him. I would to God I had flung
+back my head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of
+Mondolfo, and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
+
+I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such
+fine spirit as he sought to inspire in me. Had I succeeded I had
+established my dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much
+of misery, of anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been
+spared!
+
+The hour was crucial, though I knew it not. I stood at a parting of
+ways; yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so
+invitingly he beckoned me.
+
+And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I
+strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown
+faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled
+my father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the
+strength of my poor young soul to snap.
+
+"Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother's. Tell him so and
+come. I am waiting for you."
+
+I stifled a groan, and let my arms fall limply to my sides. I was a
+weakling and contemptible. I realized it. And yet to-day when I look
+back I see how vast a strength I should have needed. I was but thirteen
+and of a spirit that had been cowed by her, and was held under her
+thrall.
+
+"I... I am sorry, Falcone," I faltered, and there were tears in my eyes.
+
+I shrugged again--shrugged in token of my despair and grief and
+impotence--and I moved down the long room towards the door where my
+mother waited.
+
+I did not dare to bestow another look upon that poor broken old warrior,
+that faithful, lifelong servant, turned thus cruelly upon the world by a
+woman whom bigotry had sapped of all human feelings and a boy who was a
+coward masquerading under a great name.
+
+I heard his gasping sob, and the sound smote upon my heart and hurt me
+as if it had been iron. I had failed him. He must suffer more in the
+knowledge of my unworthiness to be called the son of that master whom he
+had worshipped than in the destitution that might await him.
+
+I reached the door.
+
+"My lord! My lord!" he cried after me despairingly. On the very
+threshold I stood arrested by that heartbroken cry of his. I half
+turned.
+
+"Falcone... " I began.
+
+And then my mother's white hand fell upon my wrist.
+
+"Come, my son," she said, once more impassive.
+
+Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I passed out I heard Falcone's voice
+crying:
+
+"My lord, my lord! God help me, and God help you!" An hour later he
+had left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden
+ducats which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy
+grooms or serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse
+had old Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+
+That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her
+ever to have done before.
+
+It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me
+notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber. It may be
+that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment
+in the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to
+obey her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny
+ere it should spread and become too big for her.
+
+We sat in the room that was called her private dining-room, but which,
+in fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
+
+The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my
+father's day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings,
+their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the
+looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved
+movables, had been shut up these many years.
+
+For my mother's claustral needs sufficient was provided by the alcove
+in which she slept, the private chapel of the citadel in which she would
+spend long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into
+the spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into
+our town of Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his
+ill-starred rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge.
+
+"Tell me whom you go with, and I will tell you what you are," says the
+proverb. "Show me your dwelling, and I shall see your character," say I.
+
+And surely never was there a chamber so permeated by the nature of its
+tenant as that private dining-room of my mother's.
+
+It was a narrow room in the shape of a small parallelogram, with the
+windows set high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it
+was impossible either to look in or to look out, as is sometimes the
+case with the windows of a chapel.
+
+On the white space of wall that faced the door hung a great wooden
+Crucifix, very rudely carved by one who either knew nothing of anatomy,
+or else--as is more probable--was utterly unable to set down his
+knowledge upon timber. The crudely tinted figure would be perhaps half
+the natural size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous
+representation of the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen. It
+filled one with a horror which was far indeed removed from the pious
+horror which that Symbol is intended to arouse in every true believer.
+It emphasized all the ghastly ugliness of death upon that most barbarous
+of gallows, without any suggestion of the beauty and immensity of the
+Divine Martyrdom of Him Who in the likeness of the sinful flesh was
+Alone without sin.
+
+And to me the ghastliest and most pitiful thing of all was an artifice
+which its maker had introduced for the purpose of conveying some
+suggestion of the supernatural to that mangled, malformed, less than
+human representation. Into the place of the wound made by the spear of
+Longinus, he had introduced a strip of crystal which caught the light at
+certain angles--more particularly when there were lighted tapers in the
+room--so that in reflecting this it seemed to shed forth luminous rays.
+
+An odd thing was that my mother--who looked upon that Crucifix with eyes
+that were very different from mine--would be at pains in the evening
+when lights were fetched to set a taper at such an angle as was best
+calculated to produce the effect upon which the sculptor had counted.
+What satisfaction it can have been to her to see reflected from that
+glazed wound the light which she herself had provided for the purpose,
+I am lost to think. And yet I am assured that she would contemplate that
+shining effluence in a sort of ecstatic awe, accounting it something
+very near akin to miracle.
+
+Under this Crucifix hung a little alabaster font of holy-water, into
+the back of which was stuck a withered, yellow branch of palm, which was
+renewed on each Palm Sunday. Before it was set a praying-stool of plain
+oak, without any cushion to mitigate its harshness to the knees.
+
+In the corner of the room stood a tall, spare, square cupboard,
+capacious but very plain, in which the necessaries of the table were
+disposed. In the opposite corner there was another smaller cupboard with
+a sort of writing-pulpit beneath. Here my mother kept the accounts of
+her household, her books of recipes, her homely medicines and the heavy
+devotional tomes and lesser volumes--mostly manuscript--out of which she
+nourished her poor starving soul.
+
+Amongst these was the Treatise of the Mental Sufferings of Christ--the
+book of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who
+founded the convent of Poor Clares in that city--a book whose almost
+blasphemous presumption fired the train of my earliest misgivings.
+
+Another was The Spiritual Combat, that queer yet able book of the cleric
+Scupoli--described as the "aureo libro," dedicated "Al Supremo Capitano
+e Gloriosissimo Trionfatore, Gesu Cristo, Figliuolo di Maria," and this
+dedication in the form of a letter to Our Saviour, signed, "Your most
+humble servant, purchased with Your Blood." 1
+
+     1 This work, which achieved a great vogue and of which
+     several editions were issued down to 1750, was first printed
+     in 1589. Clearly, however, MS. copies were in existence
+     earlier, and it is to one of these that Agostino here
+     refers.
+
+
+Down the middle of the chamber ran a long square-ended table of oak,
+very plain like all the rest of the room's scant furnishings. At the
+head of this table was an arm-chair for my mother, of bare wood without
+any cushion to relieve its hardness, whilst on either side of the board
+stood a few lesser chairs for those who habitually dined there. These
+were, besides myself, Fra Gervasio, my tutor; Messer Giorgio, the
+castellan, a bald-headed old man long since past the fighting age
+and who in times of stress would have been as useful for purposes of
+defending Mondolfo as Lorenza, my mother's elderly woman, who sat below
+him at the board; he was toothless, bowed, and decrepit, but he was very
+devout--as he had need to be, seeing that he was half dead already--and
+this counted with my mother above any other virtue.2
+
+2 Virtu is the word used by Agostino, and it is susceptible to a wider
+translation than that which the English language affords, comprising as
+it does a sense of courage and address at arms. Indeed, it is not clear
+that Agostino is not playing here upon the double meaning of the word.
+
+
+The last of the four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the
+seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom
+the only joyous thing was his misnomer of a name.
+
+Of the table that we kept, beyond noting that the fare was ever of a
+lenten kind and that the wine was watered, I will but mention that my
+mother did not observe the barrier of the salt. There was no sitting
+above it or below at our board, as, from time immemorial, is the
+universal custom in feudal homes. That her having abolished it was an
+act of humility on her part there can be little doubt, although this was
+a subject upon which she never expressed herself in my hearing.
+
+The walls of that room were whitewashed and bare.
+
+The floor was of stone overlain by a carpet of rushes that was changed
+no oftener than once a week.
+
+From what I have told you, you may picture something of the chill gloom
+of the place, something of the pietism which hung upon the very air of
+that apartment in which so much of my early youth was spent. And it had,
+too, an odour that is peculiarly full of character, the smell which
+is never absent from a sacristy and rarely from conventual chambers; a
+smell difficult to define, faint and yet tenuously pungent, and like
+no other smell in all the world that I have ever known. It is a musty
+odour, an odour of staleness which perhaps an open window and the fresh
+air of heaven might relieve but could not dissipate; and to this is wed,
+but so subtly that it would be impossible to say which is predominant,
+the slight, sickly aroma of wax.
+
+We supped there that night in silence at about the hour that poor Gino
+Falcone would be taking his departure. Silence was habitual with us at
+meal-times, eating being performed--like everything else in that drab
+household--as a sort of devotional act. Occasionally the silence would
+be relieved by readings aloud from some pious work, undertaken at my
+mother's bidding by one or another of the amanuenses.
+
+But on the night in question there was just silence, broken chiefly by
+the toothless slobber of the castellan over the soft meats that were
+especially prepared for him. And there was something of grimness in
+that silence; for none--and Fra Gervasio less than any--approved the
+unchristian thing that out of excess of Christianity my mother had done
+in driving old Falcone forth.
+
+Myself, I could not eat at all. My misery choked me. The thought of that
+old servitor whom I had loved being sent a wanderer and destitute, and
+all through my own weakness, all because I had failed him in his need,
+just as I had failed myself, was anguish to me. My lip would quiver at
+the thought, and it was with difficulty that I repressed my tears.
+
+At last that hideous repast came to an end in prayers of thanksgiving
+whose immoderate length was out of all proportion to the fare provided.
+
+The castellan shuffled forth upon the arm of the seneschal; Lorenza
+followed at a sign from my mother, and we three--Gervasio, my mother,
+and I--were left alone.
+
+And here let me say a word of Fra Gervasio. He was, as I have already
+written, my father's foster-brother. That is to say, he was the child
+of a sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose lusty, healthy
+breast my father had suckled the first of that fine strength that had
+been his own.
+
+He was older than my father by a month or so, and as often happens in
+such cases, he was brought to Mondolfo to be first my father's playmate,
+and later, no doubt, to have followed him as a man-at-arms. But a chill
+that he took in his tenth year as a result of a long winter immersion in
+the icy waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left
+him thereafter of a rather weak and sickly nature. But he was quick
+and intelligent, and was admitted to learn his letters with my father,
+whence it ensued that he developed a taste for study. Seeing that by
+his health he was debarred from the hardy open life of a soldier, his
+scholarly aptitude was encouraged, and it was decided that he should
+follow a clerical career.
+
+He had entered the order of St. Francis; but after some years at
+the Convent of Aguilona, his health having been indifferent and the
+conventual rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence
+to become the chaplain of Mondolfo. Here he had received the kindliest
+treatment at the hands of my father, who entertained for his sometime
+playmate a very real affection.
+
+He was a tall, gaunt man with a sweet, kindly face, reflecting his
+sweet, kindly nature; he had deep-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their
+gaze, a tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffering and
+an upright wrinkle, deep as a gash, between his brows at the root of his
+long, slender nose.
+
+He it was that night who broke the silence that endured even after the
+others had departed. He spoke at first as if communing with himself,
+like a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and his long
+forefinger, I remember that he kneaded a crumb of bread upon which his
+eyes were intent.
+
+"Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He
+would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift,
+to die to no purpose. Ah, well." He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
+whilst I--the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my
+thoughts thus expressed--fell soundlessly to weeping.
+
+"Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?" quoth my mother, quite emotionless.
+
+The monk pushed back his stool and rose ere he replied. "I must," he
+said, "or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear. I must reprove this
+unchristian act, or else am I no true servant of my Master."
+
+She crossed herself with her thumb-nail upon the brow and upon the lips,
+to repress all evil thoughts and evil words--an unfailing sign that she
+was stirred to anger and sought to combat the sin of it. Then she spoke,
+meekly enough, in the same cold, level voice.
+
+"I think it is you who are at fault," she told him, "when you call
+unchristian an act which was necessary to secure this child to Christ."
+
+He smiled a sad little smile. "Yet even so, it were well you should
+proceed with caution and with authority; and in this you have none."
+
+It was her turn to smile, the palest, ghostliest of smiles, and even for
+so much she must have been oddly moved. "I think I have," said she, and
+quoted, "'If thy right hand offend thee, hack it off.'"
+
+I saw a hot flush mount to the friar's prominent cheek-bones. Indeed, he
+was a very human man under his conventual robe, with swift stirrings
+of passion which the long habit of repression had not yet succeeded
+in extinguishing. He cast his eyes to the ceiling in such a glance of
+despair as left me thoughtful. It was as an invocation to Heaven to
+look down upon the obstinate, ignorant folly of this woman who accounted
+herself wise and who so garbled the Divine teaching as to blaspheme with
+complacency.
+
+I know that now; at the time I was not quite so clear-sighted as to read
+the full message of that glance.
+
+Her audacity was as the audacity of fools. Where wisdom, full-fledged,
+might have halted, trembling, she swept resolutely onward. Before her
+stood this friar, this teacher and interpreter, this man of holy life
+who was accounted profoundly learned in the Divinities; and he told her
+that she had done an evil thing. Yet out of the tiny pittance of her
+knowledge and her little intellectual sight--which was no better than a
+blindness--must she confidently tell him that he was at fault.
+
+Argument was impossible between him and her. Thus much I saw, and I
+feared an explosion of the wrath of which I perceived in him the signs.
+But he quelled it. Yet his voice rumbled thunderously upon his next
+words.
+
+"It matters something that Gino Falcone should not starve," he said.
+
+"It matters more that my son should not be damned," she answered him,
+and with that answer left him weapon-less, for against the armour of a
+crassness so dense and one-ideaed there are no weapons that can prevail.
+
+"Listen," she said, and her eyes, raised for a moment, comprehended both
+of us in their glance. "There is something that it were best I tell you,
+that once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino
+here. My lord his father was a man of blood and strife..."
+
+"And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and
+are its glory," answered the friar with quick asperity.
+
+"But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against
+Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he," she reminded him sorrowfully.
+"The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause. In
+my lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a
+thing accursed. But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia
+in all the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer. It
+was perhaps well for all of us that it so befell."
+
+"Madonna!" cried Gervasio in stern horror.
+
+But she went on quite heedless of him. "Best of all was it for me, since
+I was spared the harshest duty that can be imposed upon a woman and a
+wife. It was necessary that he should expiate the evil he had wrought;
+moreover, his life was become a menace to my child's salvation. It was
+his wish to make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only
+son adown the path of Hell. It was my duty to my God and to my son to
+shield this boy. And to accomplish that I would have delivered up his
+father to the papal emissaries who sought him."
+
+"Ah, never that!" the friar protested. "You could never have done that!"
+
+"Could I not? I tell you it was as good as done. I tell you that the
+thing was planned. I took counsel with my confessor, and he showed me my
+plain duty."
+
+She paused a moment, whilst we stared, Fra Gervasio white-faced and with
+mouth that gaped in sheer horror.
+
+"For years had he eluded the long arm of the pope's justice," she
+resumed. "And during those years he had never ceased to plot and
+plan the overthrow of the Pontifical dominion. He was blinded by his
+arrogance to think that he could stand against the hosts of Heaven. His
+stubbornness in sin had made him mad. Quem Deus vult perdere..." And
+she waved one of her emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished.
+"Heaven showed me the way, chose me for Its instrument. I sent him word,
+offering him shelter here at Mondolfo where none would look to find him,
+assuming it to be the last place to which he would adventure. He was to
+have come when death took him on the field of Perugia."
+
+There was something here that I did not understand at all. And in like
+case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his brow,
+as if to clear thence some veils that clogged his understanding.
+
+"He was to have come?" he echoed. "To shelter?" he asked.
+
+"Nay," said she quietly, "to death. The papal emissaries had knowledge
+of it and would have been here to await him."
+
+"You would have betrayed him?" Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse, his eyes
+were burning sombrely.
+
+"I would have saved my son," said she, with quiet satisfaction, in a
+tone that revealed how incontestably right she conceived herself to be.
+
+He stood there, and he seemed taller and more gaunt than usual, for he
+had drawn himself erect to the full of his great height--and he was a
+man who usually went bowed. His hands were clenched and the knuckles
+showed blue-white like marble. His face was very pale and in his temple
+a little pulse was throbbing visibly. He swayed slightly upon his
+feet, and the sight of him frightened me a little. He seemed so full of
+terrible potentialities.
+
+When I think of vengeance, I picture to myself Fra Gervasio as I beheld
+him in that hour. Nothing that he could have done would have surprised
+me. Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn her limb from limb,
+it would have been no more than from the sight of him I might have
+expected.
+
+I have said that nothing that he could have done would have surprised
+me. Rather should I have said that nothing would have surprised me save
+the thing he did.
+
+Whilst a man might have counted ten stood he so--she seeing nothing of
+the strange transfiguration that had come over him, for her eyes were
+downcast as ever. Then quite slowly, his hands unclenched, his arms
+fell limply to his sides, his head sank forward upon his breast, and his
+figure bowed itself lower than was usual. Quite suddenly, quite softly,
+almost as a man who swoons, he sank down again into the chair from which
+he had risen.
+
+He set his elbows on the table, and took his head in his hands. A groan
+escaped him. She heard it, and looked at him in her furtive way.
+
+"You are moved by this knowledge, Fra Gervasio," she said and sighed. "I
+have told you this--and you, Agostino--that you may know how deep, how
+ineradicable is my purpose. You were a votive offering, Agostino;
+you were vowed to the service of God that your father's life might be
+spared, years ago, ere you were born. From the very edge of death was
+your father brought back to life and strength. He would have used that
+life and that strength to cheat God of the price of His boon to me."
+
+"And if," Fra Gervasio questioned almost fiercely, "Agostino in the end
+should have no vocation, should have no call to such a life?"
+
+She looked at him very wistfully, almost pityingly. "How should that
+be?" she asked. "He was offered to God. And that God accepted the gift,
+He showed when He gave Giovanni back to life. How, then, could it come
+to pass that Agostino should have no call? Would God reject that which
+He had accepted?"
+
+Fra Gervasio rose again. "You go too deep for me, Madonna," he said
+bitterly. "It is not for me to speak of my gifts save reverently and in
+profound and humble gratitude for that grace by which God bestowed them
+upon me. But I am accounted something of a casuist. I am a doctor of
+theology and of canon law, and but for the weak state of my health I
+should be sitting to-day in the chair of canon law at the University of
+Pavia. And yet, Madonna, the things you tell me with such assurance make
+a mock of everything I have ever learnt."
+
+Even I, lad as I was, perceived the bitter irony in which he spoke. Not
+so she. I vow she flushed under what she accounted his praise of her
+wisdom and divine revelation; for vanity is the last human weakness to
+be discarded. Then she seemed to recollect herself. She bowed her head
+very reverently.
+
+"It is God's grace that reveals to me the truth," she said.
+
+He fell back a step in his amazement at having been so thoroughly
+misunderstood. Then he drew away from the table. He looked at her as
+he would speak, but checked on the thought. He turned, and so, without
+another word, departed, and left us sitting there together.
+
+It was then that we had our talk; or, rather, that she talked, whilst I
+sat listening. And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more
+under the spell of which I had more than once that day been on the point
+of casting off the yoke.
+
+For, after all, you are to discern in what I have written here, between
+what were my feelings at the time and what are my criticisms of to-day
+in the light of the riper knowledge to which I have come. The handling
+of a sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown. Yet was I ready
+to believe that such a thrill was but a lure of Satan's, as my mother
+assured me. In deeper matters she might harbour error, as Fra Gervasio's
+irony had shown me that he believed. But we went that night into no
+great depths.
+
+She spent an hour or so in vague discourse upon the joys of Paradise, in
+showing me the folly of jeopardizing them for the sake of the fleeting
+vanities of this ephemeral world. She dealt at length upon the love of
+God for us, and the love which we should bear to Him, and she read to
+me passages from the book of the Blessed Varano and from Scupoli to add
+point to her teachings upon the beauty and nobility of a life that
+is devoted to God's service--the only service of this world in which
+nobility can exist.
+
+And then she added little stories of martyrs who had suffered for the
+faith, of the tortures to which they had been subjected, and of the
+happiness they had felt in actual suffering, of the joy that their very
+torments had brought them, borne up as they were by their faith and the
+strength of their love of God.
+
+There was in all this nothing that was new to me, nothing that I did
+not freely accept and implicitly believe without pausing to judge or
+criticize. And yet, it was shrewd of her to have plied me then as
+she did; for thereby, beyond doubt, she checked me upon the point of
+self-questioning to which that day's happenings were urging me, and she
+brought me once more obediently to heel and caused me to fix my eyes
+more firmly than ever beyond the things of this world and upon the
+glories of the next which I was to make my goal and aim.
+
+Thus came I back within the toils from which I had been for a moment
+tempted to escape; and what is more, my imagination fired to some touch
+of ecstasy by those tales of sainted martyrs, I returned willingly to
+the pietistic thrall, to be held in it more firmly than ever yet before.
+
+We parted as we always parted, and when I had kissed her cold hand I
+went my way to bed. And if I knelt that night to pray that God might
+watch over poor errant Falcone, it was to the end that Falcone might be
+brought to see the sin and error of his ways and win to the grace of a
+happy death when his hour came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LUISINA
+
+
+Of the four years that followed little mention need be made in these
+pages, save for one incident whose importance is derived entirely from
+that which subsequently befell, for at the time it had no meaning for
+me. Yet since later it was to have much, it is fitting that it should be
+recorded here.
+
+It happened that a month or so after old Falcone had left us there
+wandered one noontide into the outer courtyard of the castle two pilgrim
+fathers, on their way--as they announced--from Milan to visit the Holy
+House at Loreto.
+
+It was my mother's custom to receive all pilgrim wayfarers and beggars
+in this courtyard at noontide twice in each week to bestow upon them
+food and alms. Rarely was she, herself, present at that alms-giving;
+more rarely still was I. It was Fra Gervasio who discharged the office
+of almoner on the Countess of Mondolfo's behalf. Occasionally the whines
+and snarls of the motley crowd that gathered there--for they were not
+infrequently quarrelsome--reached us in the maschio tower where we had
+our apartments. But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in
+the pillared gallery above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging
+human mass below, for the concourse was greater than usual.
+
+Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted,
+withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off,
+others again--and there were many of these--with hideous running
+sores, some of which no doubt would be counterfeit--as I now know--and
+contrived with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity
+in the piteous. All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and,
+doubtless, verminous. Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one
+another aside to reach Fra Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply
+of alms and food should be exhausted ere their turn arrived. Amongst
+them there was commonly a small sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of
+these, perhaps, just the hypocrite rogues that I have since discovered
+many of them to be, though at the time all who wore the scapulary were
+holy men in my innocent eyes. They were mostly, or so they pretended,
+bent upon pilgrimages to distant parts, living upon such alms as they
+could gather on their way.
+
+On the steps of the chapel Fra Gervasio would stand--gaunt and
+impassive--with his posse of attendant grooms behind him. One of the
+latter, standing nearest to our almoner, held a great sack of broken
+bread; another presented a wooden, trough-like platter filled with
+slices of meat, and a third dispensed out of horn cups a poor, thin, and
+rather sour, but very wholesome wine, which he drew from the skins that
+were his charge.
+
+From one to the other were the beggars passed on by Fra Gervasio, and
+lastly came they back to him, to receive from his hands a piece of
+money--a grosso, of which he held the bag himself.
+
+On the day of which I write, as I stood there gazing down upon that mass
+of misery, marvelling perhaps a little upon the inequality of fortune,
+and wondering vaguely what God could be about to inflict so much
+suffering upon certain of His creatures, to cause one to be born into
+purple and another into rags, my eyes were drawn by the insistent stare
+of two monks who stood at the back of the crowd with their shoulders to
+the wall.
+
+They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their
+tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the
+ample sleeves of their brown habits. One of this twain was broader than
+his companion and very erect of carriage, such as was unusual in a monk.
+His mouth and the half of his face were covered by a thick brown beard,
+and athwart his countenance, from under the left eye across his nose and
+cheek, ran a great livid scar to lose itself in the beard towards the
+right jaw. His deep-set eyes regarded me so intently that I coloured
+uncomfortably under their gaze; for accustomed as I was to seclusion, I
+was easily abashed. I turned away and went slowly along the gallery to
+the end; and yet I had a feeling that those eyes were following me, and,
+indeed, casting a swift glance over my shoulder ere I went indoors, I
+saw that this was so.
+
+That evening at supper I chanced to mention the matter to Fra Gervasio.
+
+"There was a big bearded capuchin in the yard at alms-time to-day--" I
+was beginning, when the friar's knife clattered from his hand, and he
+looked at me with eyes of positive fear out of a face from which the
+last drop of blood had abruptly receded. I checked my inquiry at the
+sight of him thus suddenly disordered, whilst my mother, who, as usual,
+observed nothing, made a foolish comment.
+
+"The little brothers are never absent, Agostino."
+
+"This brother was a big brother," said I.
+
+"It is not seemly to make jest of holy men," she reproved me in her
+chilling voice.
+
+"I had no thought to jest," I answered soberly. "I should never
+have remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an
+intentness--so great that I was unable to bear it."
+
+It was her turn to betray emotion. She looked at me full and long--for
+once--and very searchingly. She, too, had grown paler than was her
+habit.
+
+"Agostino, what do you tell me?" quoth she, and her voice quivered.
+
+Now here was a deal of pother about a capuchin who had stared at the
+Madonnino of Anguissola! The matter was out of all proportion to the
+stir it made, and I conveyed in my next words some notion of that
+opinion.
+
+But she stared wistfully. "Never think it, Agostino," she besought me.
+"You know not what it may import." And then she turned to Fra Gervasio.
+"Who was this mendicant?" she asked.
+
+He had by now recovered from his erstwhile confusion. But he was still
+pale, and I observed that his hand trembled.
+
+"He must have been one of the two little brothers of St. Francis on
+their way, they said, from Milan to Loreto on a pilgrimage."
+
+"Not those you told me are resting here until to-morrow?"
+
+From his face I saw that he would have denied it had it lain within his
+power to utter a deliberate falsehood.
+
+"They are the same," he answered in a low voice.
+
+She rose. "I must see this friar," she announced, and never in all my
+life had I beheld in her such a display of emotion.
+
+"In the morning, then," said Fra Gervasio. "It is after sunset," he
+explained. "They have retired, and their rule..." He left the sentence
+unfinished, but he had said enough to be understood by her.
+
+She sank back to her chair, folded her hands in her lap and fell into
+meditation. The faintest of flushes crept into her wax-like cheeks.
+
+"If it should be a sign!" she murmured raptly, and then she turned again
+to Fra Gervasio. "You heard Agostino say that he could not bear this
+friar's gaze. You remember, brother, how a pilgrim appeared near San
+Rufino to the nurse of Saint Francis, and took from her arms the child
+that he might bless it ere once more he vanished? If this should be a
+sign such as that!"
+
+She clasped her hands together fervently. "I must see this friar ere he
+departs again," she said to the staring, dumbfounded Fra Gervasio.
+
+At last, then, I understood her emotion. All her life she had prayed
+for a sign of grace for herself or for me, and she believed that here at
+last was something that might well be discovered upon inquiry to be
+an answer to her prayer. This capuchin who had stared at me from
+the courtyard became at once to her mind--so ill-balanced upon such
+matters--a supernatural visitant, harbinger, as it were, of my future
+saintly glory.
+
+But though she rose betimes upon the morrow, to see the holy man ere he
+fared forth again, she was not early enough. In the courtyard whither
+she descended to make her way to the outhouse where the two were lodged,
+she met Fra Gervasio, who was astir before her.
+
+"The friar?" she cried anxiously, filled already with forebodings. "The
+holy man?"
+
+Gervasio stood before her, pale and trembling. "You are too late,
+Madonna. Already he is gone."
+
+She observed his agitation now, and beheld in it a reflection of her
+own, springing from the selfsame causes. "Oh, it was a sign indeed!"
+she exclaimed. "And you have come to realize it, too, I see." Next, in a
+burst of gratitude that was almost pitiful upon such slight foundation,
+"Oh, blessed Agostino!" she cried out.
+
+Then the momentary exaltation fell from that woman of sorrows. "This but
+makes my burden heavier, my responsibility greater," she wailed. "God
+help me bear it!"
+
+Thus passed that incident so trifling in itself and so misunderstood by
+her. But it was never forgotten, and from time to time she would allude
+to it as the sign which had been vouchsafed me and for which great
+should be my thankfulness and my joy.
+
+Save for that, in the four years that followed, time flowed an
+uneventful course within the four walls of the big citadel--for beyond
+those four walls I was never once permitted to set foot; and although
+from time to time I heard rumours of doings in the town itself, of the
+affairs of the State whereof I was by right of birth the tyrant, and
+of the greater business of the big world beyond, yet so trained and
+schooled was I that I had no great desire for a nearer acquaintance with
+that world.
+
+A certain curiosity did at times beset me, spurred not so much by the
+little that I heard as by things that I read in such histories as my
+studies demanded I should read. For even the lives of saints, and
+Holy Writ itself, afford their student glimpses of the world. But this
+curiosity I came to look upon as a lure of the flesh, and to resist.
+Blessed are they who are out of all contact with the world, since to
+them salvation comes more easily; so I believed implicitly, as I was
+taught by my mother and by Fra Gervasio at my mother's bidding.
+
+And as the years passed under such influences as had been at work upon
+me from the cradle, influences which had known no check save that brief
+one afforded by Gino Falcone, I became perforce devout and pious from
+very inclination.
+
+Joyous transports were afforded me by the study of the life of that
+Saint Luigi of the noble Mantuan House of Gonzaga--in whom I saw an
+ideal to be emulated, since he seemed to me to be much in my own case
+and of my own estate--who had counted the illusory greatness of this
+world well lost so that he might win the bliss of Paradise. Similarly
+did I take delight in the Life, written by Tommaso da Celano, of that
+blessed son of Pietro Bernardone, the merchant of Assisi, that Francis
+who became the Troubadour of the Lord and sang so sweetly the praises
+of His Creation. My heart would swell within me and I would weep hot and
+very bitter tears over the narrative of the early and sinful part of his
+life, as we may weep to see a beloved brother beset by deadly perils.
+And greater, hence, was the joy, the exultation, and finally the sweet
+peace and comfort that I gathered from the tale of his conversion, of
+his wondrous works, and of the Three Companions.
+
+In these pages--so lively was my young imagination and so wrought
+upon by what I read--I suffered with him again his agonies of hope, I
+thrilled with some of the joy of his stupendous ecstasies, and I almost
+envied him the signal mark of Heavenly grace that had imprinted the
+stigmata upon his living body.
+
+All that concerned him, too, I read: his Little Flowers, his Testament,
+The Mirror of Perfection; but my greatest delight was derived from his
+Song of the Creatures, which I learnt by heart.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered and sought to determine whether it was
+the piety of those lauds that charmed me spiritually, or an appeal to
+my senses made by the beauty of the lines and the imagery which the
+Assisian used in his writings.
+
+Similarly I am at a loss to determine whether the pleasure I took in
+reading of the joyous, perfumed life of that other stigmatized saint,
+the blessed Catherine of Siena, was not a sensuous pleasure rather than
+the soul-ecstasy I supposed it at the time.
+
+And as I wept over the early sins of St. Francis, so too did I weep over
+the rhapsodical Confessions of St. Augustine, that mighty theologian
+after whom I had been named, and whose works--after those concerning St.
+Francis--exerted a great influence upon me in those early days.
+
+Thus did I grow in grace until Fra Gervasio, who watched me narrowly and
+anxiously, seemed more at ease, setting aside the doubts that earlier
+had tormented him lest I should be forced upon a life for which I had no
+vocation. He grew more tender and loving towards me, as if something of
+pity lurked within the strong affection in which he held me.
+
+And, meanwhile, as I grew in grace of spirit, so too did I grow in
+grace of body, waxing tall and very strong, which would have been nowise
+surprising but that those nurtured as was I are seldom lusty. The mind
+feeding overmuch upon the growing body is apt to sap its strength
+and vigour, besides which there was the circumstance that I continued
+throughout those years a life almost of confinement, deprived of all the
+exercises by which youth is brought to its fine flower of strength.
+
+As I was approaching my eighteenth year there befell another incident,
+which, trivial in itself, yet has its place in my development and so
+should have its place within these confessions. Nor did I judge it
+trivial at the time--nor were trivial the things that followed out
+of it--trivial though it may seem to me to-day as I look back upon it
+through all the murk of later life.
+
+Giojoso, the seneschal, of whom I have spoken, had a son, a great
+raw-boned lad whom he would have trained as an amanuensis, but who was
+one of Nature's dunces out of which there is nothing useful to be made.
+He was strong-limbed, however, and he was given odd menial duties to
+perform about the castle. But these he shirked where possible, as he had
+shirked his lessons in earlier days.
+
+Now it happened that I was walking one spring morning--it was in May
+of that year '44 of which I am now writing--on the upper of the
+three spacious terraces that formed the castle garden. It was but an
+indifferently tended place, and yet perhaps the more agreeable on that
+account, since Nature had been allowed to have her prodigal, luxuriant
+way. It is true that the great boxwood hedges needed trimming, and that
+weeds were sprouting between the stones of the flights of steps that led
+from terrace to terrace; but the place was gay and fragrant with wild
+blossoms, and the great trees afforded generous shade, and the long rank
+grass beneath them made a pleasant couch to lie on during the heat of
+the day in summer. The lowest terrace of all was in better case. It was
+a well-planted and well-tended orchard, where I got many a colic in my
+earlier days from a gluttony of figs and peaches whose complete ripening
+I was too impatient to await.
+
+I walked there, then, one morning quite early on the upper terrace
+immediately under the castle wall, and alternately I read from the De
+Civitate Dei which I had brought with me, alternately mused upon the
+matter of my reading. Suddenly I was disturbed by a sound of voices just
+below me.
+
+The boxwood hedge, being twice my height and fully two feet thick,
+entirely screened the speakers from my sight.
+
+There were two voices, and one of these, angry and threatening, I
+recognized for that of Rinolfo--Messer Giojoso's graceless son; the
+other, a fresh young feminine voice, was entirely unknown to me; indeed
+it was the first girl's voice I could recall having heard in all my
+eighteen years, and the sound was as pleasantly strange as it was
+strangely pleasant.
+
+I stood quite still, to listen to its expostulations.
+
+"You are a cruel fellow, Ser Rinolfo, and Madonna the Countess shall be
+told of this."
+
+There followed a crackling of twigs and a rush of heavy feet.
+
+"You shall have something else of which to tell Madonna's beatitude,"
+threatened the harsh voice of Rinolfo.
+
+That and his advances were answered by a frightened screech, a screech
+that moved rapidly to the right as it was emitted. There came more
+snapping of twigs, a light scurrying sound followed by a heavier one,
+and lastly a panting of breath and a soft pattering of running feet upon
+the steps that led up to the terrace where I walked.
+
+I moved forward rapidly to the opening in the hedge where these steps
+debouched, and no sooner had I appeared there than a soft, lithe body
+hurtled against me so suddenly that my arms mechanically went round it,
+my right hand still holding the De Civitate Dei, forefinger enclosed
+within its pages to mark the place.
+
+Two moist dark eyes looked up appealingly into mine out of a frightened
+but very winsome, sun-tinted face.
+
+"O Madonnino!" she panted. "Protect me! Save me!"
+
+Below us, checked midway in his furious ascent, halted Rinolfo, his big
+face red with anger, scowling up at me in sudden doubt and resentment.
+
+The situation was not only extraordinary in itself, but singularly
+disturbing to me. Who the girl was, or whence she came, I had no thought
+or notion as I surveyed her. She would be of about my own age, or
+perhaps a little younger, and from her garb it was plain that she
+belonged to the peasant class. She wore a spotless bodice of white
+linen, which but indifferently concealed the ripening swell of her young
+breast. Her petticoat, of dark red homespun, stopped short above her
+bare brown ankles, and her little feet were naked. Her brown hair, long
+and abundant, was still fastened at the nape of her slim neck, but fell
+loose beyond that, having been disturbed, no doubt, in her scuffle with
+Rinolfo. Her little mouth was deeply red and it held strong young teeth
+that were as white as milk.
+
+I have since wondered whether she was as beautiful as I deemed her in
+that moment. For it must be remembered that mine was the case of the son
+of Filippo Balducci--related by Messer Boccaccio in the merry tales
+of his Decamerone 1--who had come to years of adolescence without ever
+having beheld womanhood, so that the first sight of it in the streets
+of Florence affected him so oddly that he vexed his sire with foolish
+questions and still more foolish prayers.
+
+     1 In the Introduction to the Fourth Day.
+
+
+So was it now with me. In all my eighteen years I had by my mother's
+careful contriving never set eyes upon a woman of an age inferior to her
+own. And--consider me foolish if you will but so it is--I do not think
+that it had occurred to me that they existed, or else, if they did, that
+in youth they differed materially from what in age I found them. Thus I
+had come to look upon women as just feeble, timid creatures, over-prone
+to gossip, tears, and lamentations, and good for very little that I
+could perceive.
+
+I had been unable to understand for what reason it was that San Luigi of
+Gonzaga had from years of discretion never allowed his eyes to rest upon
+a woman; nor could I see wherein lay the special merit attributed to
+this. And certain passages in the Confessions of St. Augustine and
+in the early life of St. Francis of Assisi bewildered me and left me
+puzzled.
+
+But now, quite suddenly, it was as if revelation had come to me. It was
+as if the Book of Life had at last been opened for me, and at a glance
+I had read one of its dazzling pages. So that whether this brown peasant
+girl was beautiful or not, beautiful she seemed to me with the radiant
+beauty that is attributed to the angels of Paradise. Nor did I doubt
+that she would be as holy, for to see in beauty a mark of divine favour
+is not peculiar only to the ancient Greeks.
+
+And because of the appeal of this beauty--real or supposed--I was very
+ready with my protection, since I felt that protection must carry
+with it certain rights of ownership which must be very sweet and were
+certainly desired.
+
+Holding her, therefore, within the shelter of my arms, where in her
+heedless innocence she had flung herself, and by very instinct stroking
+with one hand her little brown head to soothe her fears, I became
+truculent for the first time in my new-found manhood, and boldly
+challenged her pursuer.
+
+"What is this, Rinolfo?" I demanded. "Why do you plague her?"
+
+"She broke up my snares," he answered sullenly, "and let the birds go
+free."
+
+"What snares? What birds?" quoth I.
+
+"He is a cruel beast," she shrilled. "And he will lie to you,
+Madonnino."
+
+"If he does I'll break the bones of his body," I promised in a tone
+entirely new to me. And then to him--"The truth now, poltroon!" I
+admonished him.
+
+At last I got the story out of them: how Rinolfo had scattered grain
+in a little clearing in the garden, and all about it had set twigs that
+were heavily smeared with viscum; that he set this trap almost daily,
+and daily took a great number of birds whose necks he wrung and had them
+cooked for him with rice by his silly mother; that it was a sin in any
+case to take little birds by such cowardly means, but that since amongst
+these birds there were larks and thrushes and plump blackbirds and other
+sweet musicians of the air, whose innocent lives were spent in singing
+the praises of God, his sin became a hideous sacrilege.
+
+Finally I learnt that coming that morning upon half a score of poor
+fluttering terrified birds held fast in Rinolfo's viscous snares, the
+little girl had given them their liberty and had set about breaking
+up the springes. At this occupation he had caught her, and there is no
+doubt that he would have taken a rude vengeance but for the sanctuary
+which she had found in me.
+
+And when I had heard, behold me for the first time indulging the
+prerogative that was mine by right of birth, and dispensing justice at
+Mondolfo like the lord of life and death that I was there.
+
+"You, Rinolfo," I said, "will set no more snares here at Mondolfo, nor
+will you ever again enter these gardens under pain of my displeasure and
+its consequences. And as for this child, if you dare to molest her for
+what has happened now, or if you venture so much as to lay a finger upon
+her at any time and I have word of it, I shall deal with you as with a
+felon. Now go."
+
+He went straight to his father, the seneschal, with a lying tale of my
+having threatened him with violence and forbidden him ever to enter the
+garden again because he had caught me there with Luisina--as the child
+was called--in my arms. And Messer Giojoso, full of parental indignation
+at this gross treatment of his child, and outraged chastity at
+the notion of a young man of churchly aims, as were mine, being in
+perversive dalliance with that peasant-wench, repaired straight to
+my mother with the story of it, which I doubt not lost nothing by its
+repetition.
+
+Meanwhile I abode there with Luisina. I was in no haste to let her go.
+Her presence pleased me in some subtle, quite indefinable manner; and my
+sense of beauty, which, always strong, had hitherto lain dormant within
+me, was awake at last and was finding nourishment in the graces of her.
+
+I sat down upon the topmost of the terrace steps, and made her sit
+beside me. This she did after some demur about the honour of it and her
+own unworthiness, objections which I brushed peremptorily aside.
+
+So we sat there on that May morning, quite close together, for which
+there was, after all, no need, seeing that the steps were of a noble
+width. At our feet spread the garden away down the flight of terraces
+to end in the castle's grey, buttressed wall. But from where we sat we
+could look beyond this, our glance meeting the landscape a mile or so
+away with the waters of the Taro glittering in the sunshine, and the
+Apennines, all hazy, for an ultimate background.
+
+I took her hand, which she relinquished to me quite freely and frankly
+with an innocence as great as my own; and I asked her who she was and
+how she came to Mondolfo. It was then that I learnt that her name was
+Luisina, that she was the daughter of one of the women employed in the
+castle kitchen, who had brought her to help there a week ago from Borgo
+Taro, where she had been living with an aunt.
+
+To-day the notion of the Tyrant of Mondolfo sitting--almost coram
+populo--on the steps of the garden of his castle, clasping the hand of
+the daughter of one of his scullions, is grotesque and humiliating. At
+the time the thought never presented itself to me at all, and had it
+done so it would have troubled me no whit. She was my first glimpse
+of fresh young maidenhood, and I was filled with pleasant interest and
+desirous of more acquaintance with this phenomenon. Beyond that I did
+not go.
+
+I told her frankly that she was very beautiful. Whereupon she looked at
+me with suddenly startled eyes that were full of fearful questionings,
+and made to draw her hand from mine. Unable to understand her fears, and
+seeking to reassure her, to convince her that in me she had a friend,
+one who would ever protect her from the brutalities of all the Rinolfos
+in the world, I put an arm about her shoulders and drew her closer to
+me, gently and protectingly.
+
+She suffered it very stonily, like a poor fascinated thing that is
+robbed by fear of its power to resist the evil that it feels enfolding
+it.
+
+"O Madonnino!" she whispered fearfully, and sighed. "Nay, you must not.
+It... it is not good."
+
+"Not good?" quoth I, and it was just so that that fool of a son of
+Balducci's must have protested in the story when he was told by his
+father that it was not good to look on women. "Nay, now, but it is good
+to me."
+
+"And they say you are to be a priest," she added, which seemed to me a
+very foolish and inconsequent thing to add.
+
+"Well, then? And what of that?" I asked.
+
+She looked at me again with those timid eyes of hers. "You should be at
+your studies," said she.
+
+"I am," said I, and smiled. "I am studying a new subject."
+
+"Madonnino, it is not a subject whose study makes good priests," she
+announced, and puzzled me again by the foolish inconsequence of her
+words.
+
+Already, indeed, she began to disappoint me. Saving my mother--whom I
+did not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether
+apart from what little humanity I had known until then--I had found
+that foolishness was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its
+cackle to a goose; and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by
+Fra Gervasio. Now here in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had
+discovered a phase of womanhood unsuspected and exceptional. She was
+driving me to conclude, however, that I had been mistaken, and that
+here was just a pretty husk containing a very trivial spirit, whose
+companionship must prove a dull affair when custom should have staled
+the first impression of her fresh young beauty.
+
+It is plain now that I did her an injustice, for there was about her
+words none of the inconsequence I imagined. The fault was in myself and
+in the profound ignorance of the ways of men and women which went hand
+in hand with my deep but ineffectual learning in the ways of saints.
+
+Our entertainment, however, was not destined to go further. For at the
+moment in which I puzzled over her words and sought to attach to them
+some intelligent meaning, there broke from behind us a scream that flung
+us apart, as startled as if we had been conscious indeed of guilt.
+
+We looked round to find that it had been uttered by my mother. Not ten
+yards away she stood, a tall black figure against the grey background
+of the lichened wall, with Giojoso in attendance and Rinolfo slinking
+behind his father, leering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. REBELLION
+
+
+The sight of my mother startled me more than I can say. It filled me
+with a positive dread of things indefinable. Never before had I seen
+her coldly placid countenance so strangely disordered, and her unwonted
+aspect it must have been that wrought so potently upon me.
+
+No longer was she the sorrowful spectre, white-faced, with downcast eyes
+and level, almost inanimate, tones. Her cheeks were flushed unnaturally,
+her lips were quivering, and angry fires were smouldering in her
+deep-set eyes.
+
+Swiftly she came down to us, seeming almost to glide over the ground.
+Not me she addressed, but poor Luisina; and her voice was hoarse with an
+awful anger.
+
+"Who are you, wench?" quoth she. "What make you here in Mondolfo?"
+
+Luisina had risen and stood swaying there, very white and with averted
+eyes, her hands clasping and unclasping. Her lips moved; but she was
+too terrified to answer. It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my
+mother of the girl's name and condition. And upon learning it her anger
+seemed to increase.
+
+"A kitchen-wench!" she cried. "O horror!"
+
+And quite suddenly, as if by inspiration, scarce knowing what I said or
+that I spoke at all, I answered her out of the store of the theological
+learning with which she had had me stuffed.
+
+"We are all equals in the sight of God, madam mother."
+
+She flashed me a glance of anger, of pious anger than which none can be
+more terrible.
+
+"Blasphemer!" she denounced me. "What has God to do with this?"
+
+She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to
+offer.
+
+"And as for that wanton," she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso,
+"let her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo. Set the
+grooms to it."
+
+But upon that command of hers I leapt of a sudden to my feet, a
+tightening about my heart, and beset by a certain breathlessness that
+turned me pale.
+
+Here again, it seemed, was to be repeated--though with methods a
+thousand times more barbarous and harsh--the wrong that was done years
+ago in the case of poor Gino Falcone. And the reason for it in this
+instance was not even dimly apparent to me. Falcone I had loved; indeed,
+in my eighteen years of life he was the only human being who had knocked
+for admission upon the portals of my heart. Him they had driven forth.
+And now, here was a child--the fairest creature of God's that until that
+hour I had beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and
+desirable, and whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone.
+Her too they would drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that
+revolted me.
+
+Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection
+was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so
+fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of
+the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger.
+
+All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is
+jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever
+known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for
+the love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding
+the blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle
+mandates of the God Incarnate.
+
+Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at
+peace in pharisaic self-righteousness.
+
+But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone,
+and let her cruel, pietistic will be done. I had grown since then, and I
+had ripened more than I was aware. It remained for this moment to reveal
+to me the extent. Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious
+of it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood.
+
+"Stay!" I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold
+and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.
+
+He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.
+
+"You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have
+been bidden. But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them
+dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him
+will I kill with these two hands."
+
+Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst
+them by those words. Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the
+cause of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother,
+all a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but
+spoke no word.
+
+I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for
+the first time in my life.
+
+"Well?" I demanded of Giojoso. "For what do you wait? About it, sir, and
+do as my mother has commanded you."
+
+He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in
+ludicrous bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this
+path so suddenly grown thorny.
+
+"Ma--madonna!" he stammered.
+
+She swallowed hard, and spoke at last.
+
+"Do you defy my will, Agostino?"
+
+"On the contrary, madam mother, I am enforcing it. Your will shall be
+done; your order shall be given. I insist upon it. But it shall lie with
+the discretion of the grooms whether they obey you. Am I to blame if
+they turn cowards?"
+
+O, I had found myself at last, and I was making a furious, joyous use of
+the discovery.
+
+"That... that were to make a mock of me and my authority," she protested.
+She was still rather helpless, rather breathless and confused, like one
+who has suddenly been hurled into cold water.
+
+"If you fear that, madam, perhaps you had better countermand your
+order."
+
+"Is the girl to remain in Mondolfo against my wishes? Are you so... so
+lost to shame?" A returning note of warmth in her accents warned me that
+she was collecting herself to deal with the situation.
+
+"Nay," said I, and I looked at Luisina, who stood there so pale and
+tearful. "I think that for her own sake, poor maid, it were better that
+she went, since you desire it. But she shall not be whipped hence like a
+stray dog."
+
+"Come, child," I said to her, as gently as I could. "Go pack, and quit
+this home of misery. And be easy. For if any man in Mondolfo attempts to
+hasten your going, he shall reckon with me."
+
+I laid a hand for an instant in kindliness and friendliness upon her
+shoulder. "Poor little Luisina," said I, sighing. But she shrank and
+trembled under my touch. "Pity me a little, for they will not permit me
+any friends, and who is friendless is indeed pitiful."
+
+And then, whether the phrase touched her, so that her simple little
+nature was roused and she shook off what self-control she had ever
+learnt, or whether she felt secure enough in my protection to dare
+proclaim her mind before them all, she caught my hand, and, stooping,
+kissed it.
+
+"O Madonnino!" she faltered, and her tears showered upon that hand of
+mine. "God reward you your sweet thought for me. I shall pray for you,
+Madonnino."
+
+"Do, Luisina," said I. "I begin to think I need it."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said my mother very sombrely. And as she spoke,
+Luisina, as if her fears were reawakened, turned suddenly and went
+quickly along the terrace, past Rinolfo, who in that moment smiled
+viciously, and round the angle of the wall.
+
+"What... what are my orders, Madonna?" quoth the wretched seneschal,
+reminding her that all had not yet been resolved.
+
+She lowered her eyes to the ground, and folded her hands. She was by now
+quite composed again, her habitual sorrowful self.
+
+"Let be," she said. "Let the wench depart. So that she goes we may count
+ourselves fortunate."
+
+"Fortunate, I think, is she," said I. "Fortunate to return to the world
+beyond all this--the world of life and love that God made and that St.
+Francis praises. I do not think he would have praised Mondolfo, for I
+greatly doubt that God had a hand in making it as it is to-day. It is
+too... too arid."
+
+O, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning.
+
+"Are you mad, Agostino?" gasped my mother.
+
+"I think that I am growing sane," said I very sadly. She flashed me one
+of her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten.
+
+"We must talk," she said. "That girl..." And then she checked. "Come
+with me," she bade me.
+
+But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look
+for my friend Rinolfo. He was moving stealthily away, following the road
+Luisina had taken. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at
+her, to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all
+anew.
+
+"Stay! You there! Rinolfo!" I called.
+
+He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.
+
+I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due. Indeed,
+I think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have
+been held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come
+to more manhood than that of the cassock.
+
+"Come here," I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat
+the order more peremptorily. At last he turned and came.
+
+"What now, Agostino?" cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my
+sleeve
+
+But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting
+uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen. Over his shoulder I
+had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.
+
+"I think you smiled just now," said I.
+
+"Heh! By Bacchus!" said he impudently, as who would say: "How could I
+help smiling?"
+
+"Will you tell me why you smiled?" I asked him.
+
+"Heh! By Bacchus!" said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a
+barb.
+
+"Will you answer me?" I roared, and under my display of anger he looked
+truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.
+
+"Agostino!" came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power
+of habit that for a moment it controlled me and subdued my violence.
+
+Nevertheless I went on, "You smiled to see your spite succeed. You
+smiled to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you
+smiled to see your broken snares avenged. And you were following after
+her no doubt to tell her all this and to smile again. This is all so, it
+is not?"
+
+"Heh! By Bacchus!" said he for the third time, and at that my patience
+gave out utterly. Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and
+belt and shaken him savagely.
+
+"Will you answer me like a fool?" I cried. "Must you be taught sense and
+a proper respect of me?"
+
+"Agostino! Agostino!" wailed my mother. "Help, Ser Giojoso! Do you not
+see that he is mad!"
+
+I do not believe that it was in my mind to do the fellow any grievous
+hurt. But he was so ill-advised in that moment as to attempt to defend
+himself. He rashly struck at one of the arms that held him, and by the
+act drove me into a fury ungovernable.
+
+"You dog!" I snarled at him from between clenched teeth. "Would you
+raise your hand to me? Am I your lord, or am I dirt of your own kind?
+Go learn submission." And I flung him almost headlong down the flight of
+steps.
+
+There were twelve of them and all of stone with edges still sharp enough
+though blunted here and there by time. The fool had never suspected in
+me the awful strength which until that hour I had never suspected in
+myself. Else, perhaps, there had been fewer insolent shrugs, fewer
+foolish answers, and, last of all, no attempt to defy me physically.
+
+He screamed as I flung him; my mother screamed; and Giojoso screamed.
+
+After that there was a panic-stricken silence whilst he went thudding
+and bumping to the bottom of the flight. I did not greatly care if I
+killed him. But he was fortunate enough to get no worse hurt than a
+broken leg, which should keep him out of mischief for a season and teach
+him respect for me for all time.
+
+His father scuttled down the steps to the assistance of that precious
+son, who lay moaning where he had fallen, the angle at which the half of
+one of his legs stood to the rest of it, plainly announcing the nature
+of his punishment.
+
+My mother swept me indoors, loading me with reproaches as we went. She
+dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra
+Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room. I went very
+obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen
+from me.
+
+There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight
+falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could
+help to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided
+me and then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the
+table's head.
+
+At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard
+some rumour of what had chanced. His keen eyes went from me to my mother
+and then back again to me.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"What has not happened?" wailed my mother. "Agostino is possessed."
+
+He knit his brows. "Possessed?" quoth he.
+
+"Ay, possessed--possessed of devils. He has been violent. He has broken
+poor Rinolfo's leg."
+
+"Ah!" said Gervasio, and turned to me frowning with full tutorial
+sternness. "And what have you to say, Agostino?"
+
+"Why, that I am sorry," answered I, rebellious once more. "I had hoped
+to break his dirty neck."
+
+"You hear him!" cried my mother. "It is the end of the world, Gervasio.
+The boy is possessed, I say."
+
+"What was the cause of your quarrel?" quoth the friar, his manner still
+more stern.
+
+"Quarrel?" quoth I, throwing back my head and snorting audibly. "I do
+not quarrel with Rinolfos. I chastise them when they are insolent or
+displease me. This one did both."
+
+He halted before me, erect and very stern--indeed almost threatening.
+And I began to grow afraid; for, after all, I had a kindness for
+Gervasio, and I would not willingly engage in a quarrel with him. Yet
+here I was determined to carry through this thing as I had begun it.
+
+It was my mother who saved the situation.
+
+"Alas!" she moaned, "there is wicked blood in him. He has the abominable
+pride that was the ruin and downfall of his father."
+
+Now that was not the way to make an ally of Fra Gervasio. It did the
+very opposite. It set him instantly on my side, in antagonism to
+the abuser of my father's memory, a memory which he, poor man, still
+secretly revered.
+
+The sternness fell away from him. He looked at her and sighed. Then,
+with bowed head, and hands clasped behind him, he moved away from me a
+little.
+
+"Do not let us judge rashly," he said. "Perhaps Agostino received some
+provocation. Let us hear..."
+
+"O, you shall hear," she promised tearfully, exultant to prove him
+wrong. "You shall hear a yet worse abomination that was the cause of
+it."
+
+And out she poured the story that Rinolfo and his father had run to
+tell her--of how I had shown the fellow violence in the first instance
+because he had surprised me with Luisina in my arms.
+
+The friar's face grew dark and grave as he listened. But ere she had
+quite done, unable longer to contain myself, I interrupted.
+
+"In that he lied like the muckworm that he is," I exclaimed. "And it
+increases my regrets that I did not break his neck as I intended."
+
+"He lied?" quoth she, her eyes wide open in amazement--not at the fact,
+but at the audacity of what she conceived my falsehood.
+
+"It is not impossible," said Fra Gervasio. "What is your story,
+Agostino?"
+
+I told it--how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had
+released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and
+how in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for
+shelter and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out
+of that garden, and never set foot in it again.
+
+"And now," I ended, "you know all the violence that I showed him, and
+the reason for it. If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall
+not believe you."
+
+"Indeed..." began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness. But my
+mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
+
+"He lies, Gervasio. He lies shamelessly. O, into what a morass of sin
+has he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper! Have I not said that
+he is possessed? We shall need the exorcist."
+
+"We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness," I
+answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar,
+to have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
+
+She rose a sombre pillar of indignation. "Agostino, I am your mother,"
+she reminded me.
+
+"Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me,"
+answered I, utterly reckless now.
+
+The answer crushed her back into her chair. She looked appealingly at
+Fra Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning. "Is he... is he perchance
+bewitched?" she asked the friar, quite seriously. "Do you think that any
+spells might have."
+
+He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort
+
+"We are at cross purposes here," he said. "Agostino does not lie. For
+that I will answer."
+
+"But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them--that I saw them with
+these two eyes--sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his
+arm about her. Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face."
+
+"Said I ever a word of that?" I appealed me to the friar. "Why, that was
+after Rinolfo left us. My tale never got so far. It is quite true. I did
+sit beside her. The child was troubled. I comforted her. Where was the
+harm?"
+
+"The harm?" quoth he. "And you had your arm about her--and you to be a
+priest one day?"
+
+"And why not, pray?" quoth I. "Is this some new sin that you have
+discovered--or that you have kept hidden from me until now? To
+console the afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our
+fellow-creatures an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself. I was
+performing both. Am I to be abused for that?"
+
+He looked at me very searchingly, seeking in my countenance--as I
+now know--some trace of irony or guile. Finding none, he turned to my
+mother. He was very solemn.
+
+"Madonna," he said quietly, "I think that Agostino is nearer to being a
+saint than either you or I will ever get."
+
+She looked at him, first in surprise, then very sadly. Slowly she shook
+her head. "Unhappily for him there is another arbiter of saintship, Who
+sees deeper than do you, Gervasio."
+
+He bowed his head. "Better not to look deep enough than to do as you
+seem in danger of doing, Madonna, and by looking too deep imagine things
+which do not exist."
+
+"Ah, you will defend him against reason even," she complained. "His
+anger exists. His thirst to kill--to stamp himself with the brand of
+Cain--exists. He confesses that himself. His insubordination to me you
+have seen for yourself; and that again is sin, for it is ordained that
+we shall honour our parents.
+
+"O!" she moaned. "My authority is all gone. He is beyond my control. He
+has shaken off the reins by which I sought to guide him."
+
+"You had done well to have taken my advice a year ago, Madonna. Even now
+it is not too late. Let him go to Pavia, to the Sapienza, to study his
+humanities."
+
+"Out into the world!" she cried in horror. "O, no, no! I have sheltered
+him here so carefully!"
+
+"Yet you cannot shelter him for ever," said he. "He must go out into the
+world some day."
+
+"He need not," she faltered. "If the call were strong enough within him,
+a convent..." She left her sentence unfinished, and looked at me.
+
+"Go, Agostino," she bade me. "Fra Gervasio and I must talk."
+
+I went reluctantly, since in the matter of their talk none could have
+had a greater interest than I, seeing that my fate stood in the balance
+of it. But I went, none the less, and her last words to me as I was
+departing were an injunction that I should spend the time until I should
+take up my studies for the day with Fra Gervasio in seeking forgiveness
+for the morning's sins and grace to do better in the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+I did not again see my mother that day, nor did she sup with us that
+evening. I was told by Fra Gervasio that on my account was she in
+retreat, praying for light and guidance in the thing that must be
+determined concerning me.
+
+I withdrew early to my little bedroom overlooking the gardens, a room
+that had more the air of a monastic cell than a bedchamber fitting the
+estate of the Lord of Mondolfo. The walls were whitewashed, and besides
+the crucifix that hung over my bed, their only decoration was a crude
+painting of St. Augustine disputing with the little boy on the seashore.
+
+For bed I had a plain hard pallet, and the room contained, in addition,
+a wooden chair, a stool upon which was set a steel basin with its ewer
+for my ablutions, and a cupboard for the few sombre black garments I
+possessed--for the amiable vanity of raiment usual in young men of my
+years had never yet assailed me; I had none to emulate in that respect.
+
+I got me to bed, blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep. But
+sleep was playing truant from me. Long I lay there surveying the events
+of that day--the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery of
+myself; the most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which,
+although I scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted love
+and battle, the strongest meats that are in the dish of life.
+
+For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and putting
+together pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softly
+opened, and I started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taper
+which he sheltered with one hand, so that the light of it was thrown
+upwards into his pale, gaunt face.
+
+Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"Sh!" he admonished me, a finger to his lips. He advanced to my side,
+set down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of my
+bed.
+
+"Lie down again, my son," he bade me. "I have something to say to you."
+
+He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet to
+my chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.
+
+"Madonna has decided," he informed me then. "She fears that having once
+resisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and that
+to keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her. Therefore she
+has resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo."
+
+A faint excitement began to stir in me. To leave Mondolfo--to go
+out into that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with my
+fellow-man, with youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens like
+Luisina, to see cities and the ways of cities; here indeed was matter
+for excitement. Yet it was an excitement not altogether pleasurable;
+for with my very natural curiosity, and with my eagerness to have it
+gratified, were blended certain fears imbibed from the only quality of
+reading that had been mine.
+
+The world was an evil place in which temptations seethed, and through
+which it was difficult to come unscathed. Therefore, I feared the world
+and the adventuring beyond the shelter of the walls of the castle of
+Mondolfo; and yet I desired to judge for myself the evil of which I
+read, the evil which in moments of doubt I even permitted myself to
+question.
+
+My reasoning followed the syllogism that God being good and God having
+created the world, it was not possible that the creation should be evil.
+It was well enough to say that the devil was loose in it. But that was
+not to say that the devil had created it; and it would be necessary to
+prove this ere it could be established that it was evil in itself--as
+many theologians appeared to seek to show--and a place to be avoided.
+
+Such was the question that very frequently arose in my mind, ultimately
+to be dismissed as a lure of Satan's to imperil my poor soul. It battled
+for existence now amid my fears; and it gained some little ascendancy.
+
+"And whither am I to go?" I asked. "To Pavia, or to the University of
+Bologna?"
+
+"Had my advice been heeded," said he, "one or the other would have been
+your goal. But your mother took counsel with Messer Arcolano."
+
+He shrugged, and there was contempt in the lines of his mouth. He
+distrusted Arcolano, the regular cleric who was my mother's confessor
+and spiritual adviser, exerting over her a very considerable influence.
+She, herself, had admitted that it was this Arcolano who had induced
+her to that horrid traffic in my father's life and liberty which she was
+mercifully spared from putting into effect.
+
+"Messer Arcolano," he resumed after a pause, "has a good friend in
+Piacenza, a pedagogue, a doctor of civil and canon law, a man who, he
+says, is very learned and very pious, named Astorre Fifanti. I have
+heard of this Fifanti, and I do not at all agree with Messer Arcolano. I
+have said so. But your mother..." He broke off. "It is decided that you
+go to him at once, to take up your study of the humanities under his
+tutelage, and that you abide with him until you are of an age for
+ordination, which your mother hopes will be very soon. Indeed, it is
+her wish that you should enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and your
+novitiate next year, to fit you for the habit of St. Augustine."
+
+He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hear
+what of my own accord I might have to urge. But my mind was incapable
+of travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the world
+to-morrow.
+
+The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from the
+idea to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than my
+mere priesthood had been spoken of. So I lay there without thinking of
+any words in which to answer him.
+
+Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little. "Agostino," he
+said presently, "you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a step
+whose import you may never fully have considered. I have been your
+tutor, and your rearing has been my charge. That charge I have
+faithfully carried out as was ordained me, but not as I would have
+carried it out had I been free to follow my heart and my conscience in
+the matter.
+
+"The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mind
+that you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your own
+inherent desire. I would have you consider it well now that the time
+approaches for a step which is irrevocable."
+
+His words and his manner startled me alike.
+
+"How?" I cried. "Do you say that it might be better if I did not seek
+ordination? What better can the world offer than the priesthood? Have
+you not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?"
+
+"To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master,
+becoming in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation,
+of self-sacrifice and purity," he answered slowly, "that is the noblest
+thing a man can be. But to be a bad priest--there are other ways of
+being damned less hurtful to the Church."
+
+"To be a bad priest?" quoth I. "Is it possible to be a bad priest?"
+
+"It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.
+Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.
+Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolis
+of the Living. Others, Agostino--and these are men most worthy of
+pity--enter the Church because they are driven to it in youth by
+ill-advised parents. I would not have you one of these, my son."
+
+I stared at him, my amazement ever growing. "Do you... do you think I am
+in danger of it?" I asked.
+
+"That is a question you must answer for yourself. No man can know what
+is in another's heart. I have trained you as I was bidden train you. I
+have seen you devout, increasing in piety, and yet..." He paused, and
+looked at me again. "It may be that this is no more than the fruit
+of your training; it may be that your piety and devotion are purely
+intellectual. It is very often so. Men know the precepts of religion
+as a lawyer knows the law. It no more follows out of that that they are
+religious--though they conceive that it does--than it follows that a
+lawyer is law-abiding. It is in the acts of their lives that we must
+seek their real natures, and no single act of your life, Agostino, has
+yet given sign that the call is in your heart.
+
+"To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with the
+world, you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that you
+did not kill is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg. I
+do not say that you did a very sinful thing. In a worldly youth of your
+years the provocation you received would have more than justified
+your action. But not in one who aims at a life of humility and
+self-forgetfulness such as the priesthood imposes."
+
+"And yet," said I, "I heard you tell my mother below stairs that I was
+nearer sainthood than either of you."
+
+He smiled sadly, and shook his head. "They were rash words, Agostino. I
+mistook ignorance for purity--a common error. I have pondered it since,
+and my reflection brings me to utter what in this household amounts to
+treason."
+
+"I do not understand," I confessed.
+
+"My duty to your mother I have discharged more faithfully perhaps than I
+had the right to do. My duty to my God I am discharging now, although
+to you I may rather appear as an advocatus diaboli. This duty is to warn
+you; to bid you consider well the step you are to take.
+
+"Listen, Agostino. I am speaking to you out of the bitter experience of
+a very cruel life. I would not have you tread the path I have trodden.
+It seldom leads to happiness in this world or the next; it seldom leads
+anywhere but straight to Hell."
+
+He paused, and I looked into his haggard face in utter stupefaction
+to hear such words from the lips of one whom I had ever looked upon as
+goodness incarnate.
+
+"Had I not known that some day I must speak to you as I am speaking now,
+I had long since abandoned a task which I did not consider good. But I
+feared to leave you. I feared that if I were removed my place might be
+taken by some time-server who to earn a livelihood would tutor you as
+your mother would have you tutored, and thrust you forth without warning
+upon the life to which you have been vowed.
+
+"Once, years ago, I was on the point of resisting your mother." He
+passed a hand wearily across his brow. "It was on the night that Gino
+Falcone left us, driven forth by her because she accounted it her duty.
+Do you remember, Agostino?"
+
+"O, I remember!" I answered.
+
+"That night," he pursued, "I was angered--righteously angered to see
+so wicked and unchristian an act performed in blasphemous
+self-righteousness. I was on the point of denouncing the deed as it
+deserved, of denouncing your mother for it to her face. And then I
+remembered you. I remembered the love I had borne your father, and my
+duty to him, to see that no such wrong was done you in the end as that
+which I feared. I reflected that if I spoke the words that were burning
+my tongue for utterance, I should go as Gino Falcone had gone.
+
+"Not that the going mattered. I could better save my soul elsewhere than
+here in this atmosphere of Christianity misunderstood; and there
+are always convents of my order to afford me shelter. But your being
+abandoned mattered; and I felt that if I went, abandoned you would be to
+the influences that drove and moulded you without consideration for
+your nature and your inborn inclinations. Therefore I remained, and left
+Falcone's cause unchampioned. Later I was to learn that he had found a
+friend, and that he was... that he was being cared for."
+
+"By whom?" quoth I, more interested perhaps in this than in anything
+that he had yet said.
+
+"By one who was your father's friend," he said, after a moment's
+hesitation, "a soldier of fortune by name of Galeotto--a leader of free
+lances who goes by the name of Il Gran Galeotto. But let that be. I want
+to tell you of myself, that you may judge with what authority I speak.
+
+"I was destined," Agostino, for a soldier's life in the following of my
+valiant foster-brother, your father. Had I preserved the strength of
+my early youth, undoubtedly a soldier's harness would be strapped here
+to-day in the place of this scapulary. But it happened that an illness
+left me sickly and ailing, and unfitted me utterly for such a life.
+Similarly it unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that I
+threatened to become a useless burden upon my parents, who were
+peasant-folk. To avoid this they determined to make a monk of me; they
+offered me to God because they found me unfitted for the service of man;
+and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk, they accounted that in doing so
+they did a good and pious thing.
+
+"I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things I
+studied; I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to the
+future; I submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, and
+before I awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, I
+was in orders."
+
+He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--"For ten years
+thereafter, Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle
+a knotted length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung
+and chafed me and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodily
+ease or proper rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection my
+rebellious flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to
+me must have been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I not
+been devout and strong in my devotion I could never have endured what
+I was forced to endure as the alternative to damnation, because without
+consideration for my nature I had been ordained a priest.
+
+"Consider this, Agostino; consider it well. I would not have you go that
+way, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur.
+Because I know--I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and thanking
+God for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me--that for
+one priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such agonizing
+means, a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of their
+example they drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the hands of
+her enemies, which is a still heavier reckoning to meet hereafter."
+
+A spell of silence followed. I was strangely moved by his tale,
+strangely impressed by the warning that I perceived in it. And yet my
+confidence, I think, was all unshaken.
+
+And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedside
+to ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed my
+confidence in my answer.
+
+"It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed," I said. "The life
+that will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I would
+follow."
+
+He looked at me long and sadly. "You must do as your heart bids you," he
+sighed. "And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learnt
+to speak to you more plainly." And upon that he left me.
+
+Next day I set out.
+
+My leave-takings were brief. My mother shed some tears and many prayers
+over me at parting. Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me.
+That were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I should
+treasure as a sacred thing. Her tears were tears of dread lest,
+surrounded by perils in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify her
+vows.
+
+She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me.
+Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilment
+of her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered. To the price
+that later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave a
+single thought.
+
+Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio. My mother had suffered
+me to do no more than kiss her hand--as was my custom. But the friar
+took me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms.
+
+"Remember!" he murmured huskily and impressively. And then, putting me
+from him, "God help and guide you, my son," were his last words.
+
+I went down the steps into the courtyard where most of the servants were
+gathered to see their lord's departure, whilst Messer Arcolano, who was
+to go with me, paused to assure my mother of the care that he would have
+of me, and to receive her final commands concerning me.
+
+Four men, mounted and armed, stood waiting to escort us, and with
+them were three mules, one for Arcolano, one for myself, and the third
+already laden with my baggage.
+
+A servant held my stirrup, and I swung myself up into the saddle, with
+which I was but indifferently acquainted. Then Arcolano mounted too,
+puffing over the effort, for he was a corpulent, rubicund man with the
+fattest hands I have ever seen.
+
+I touched my mule with the whip, and the beast began to move. Arcolano
+ambled beside me; and behind us, abreast, came the men-at-arms. Thus
+we rode down towards the gateway, and as we went the servants murmured
+their valedictory words.
+
+"A safe journey, Madonnino!"
+
+"A good return, Madonnino!"
+
+I smiled back at them, and in the eyes of more than one I detected a
+look of commiseration.
+
+Once I turned, when the end of the quadrangle was reached, and I waved
+my cap to my mother and Fra Gervasio, who stood upon the steps where I
+had left them. The friar responded by waving back to me. But my mother
+made no sign. Likely enough her eyes were upon the ground again already
+
+Her unresponsiveness almost angered me. I felt that a man had the right
+to some slight display of tenderness from the woman who had borne him.
+Her frigidity wounded me. It wounded me the more in comparison with the
+affectionate clasp of old Gervasio's arms. With a knot in my throat I
+passed from the sunlight of the courtyard into the gloom of the gateway,
+and out again beyond, upon the drawbridge. Our hooves thudded briskly
+upon the timbers, and then with a sharper note upon the cobbles beyond.
+
+I was outside the walls of the castle for the first time. Before me the
+long, rudely paved street of the borgo sloped away to the market-place
+of the town of Mondolfo. Beyond that lay the world, itself--all at my
+feet, as I imagined.
+
+The knot in my throat was dissolved. My pulses quickened with
+anticipation. I dug my heels into the mule's belly and pushed on, the
+portly cleric at my side.
+
+And thus I left my home and the gloomy, sorrowful influence of my most
+dolorous mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. GIULIANA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI. Let me not follow in too close
+detail the incidents of that journey lest I be in danger of becoming
+tedious. In themselves they contained laughable matter enough, but in
+the mere relation they may seem dull.
+
+Down the borgo, ahead of us, ran the rumour that here was the Madonnino
+of Mondolfo, and the excitement that the announcement caused was
+something at which I did not know whether to be flattered or offended.
+
+The houses gave up their inhabitants, and all stood at gaze as we
+passed, to behold for the first time this lord of theirs of whom they
+had heard Heaven knows what stories--for where there are elements of
+mystery human invention can be very active.
+
+At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon
+the glossy neck of my mule. Very soon, however, growing accustomed to
+being stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became
+a trouble to Messer Arcolano. For as I looked about me there were a
+hundred things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer
+inspection.
+
+We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a
+market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val
+di Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
+
+I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time
+that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before
+me, making way invitingly. But Messer Arcolano urged me along, saying
+that we had far to go, and that in Piacenza there were better shops and
+that I should have more time to view them.
+
+Then it was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my
+eye--Durfreno's arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon--and I must
+draw rein and cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work,
+plaguing Arcolano with a score of questions concerning the identity of
+the main figure and how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and
+whether he had succeeded in the end in his attempt to strangle it.
+
+Arcolano, out of patience by now, answered me shortly that the reptile
+was the sculptor's pious symbolization of sin, which St. Hercules was
+overcoming.
+
+I am by no means sure that such was not indeed his own conception of the
+matter, and that there did not exist in his mind some confusion as to
+whether the pagan demigod had a place in the Calendar or not. For he was
+an uncultured, plebeian fellow, and what my mother should have found
+in him to induce her to prefer him for her confessor and spiritual
+counsellor to the learned Fra Gervasio is one more of the many mysteries
+which an attempt to understand her must ever present to me.
+
+Then there were the young peasant girls who thronged about and stood in
+groups, blushing furiously under my glance, which Arcolano vainly
+bade me lower. A score of times did it seem to me that one of these
+brown-legged, lithe, comely creatures was my little Luisina; and more
+than once I was on the point of addressing one or another, to discover
+my mistake and be admonished for my astounding frivolousness by Messer
+Arcolano.
+
+And when once or twice I returned the friendly laughter of these girls,
+whilst the grinning serving-men behind me would nudge one another and
+wink to see me--as they thought--so very far off the road to priesthood
+to which I was vowed, hot anathema poured from the fat cleric's lips,
+and he urged me roughly to go faster.
+
+His tortures ended at last when we came into the open country. We rode
+in silence for a mile or two, I being full of thought of all that I had
+seen, and infected a little by the fever of life through which I had
+just passed. At last, I remember that I turned to Arcolano, who was
+riding with the ears of his mule in line with my saddle-bow, and asked
+him to point out to me where my dominions ended.
+
+The meek question provoked an astonishingly churlish answer. I was
+shortly bidden to give my mind to other than worldly things; and with
+that he began a homily, which lasted for many a weary mile, upon the
+vanities of the world and the glories of Paradise--a homily of the very
+tritest, upon subjects whereupon I, myself, could have dilated to better
+purpose than could His Ignorance.
+
+The distance from Mondolfo to Piacenza is a good eight leagues, and
+though we had set out very early, it was past noon before we caught our
+first glimpse of the city by the Po, lying low as it does in the vast
+Aemilian plain, and Arcolano set himself to name to me this church and
+that whose spires stood out against the cobalt background of the sky.
+
+An hour or so after our first glimpse of the city, our weary beasts
+brought us up to the Gate of San Lazzaro. But we did not enter, as I
+had hoped. Messer Arcolano had had enough of me and my questions at
+Mondolfo, and he was not minded to expose himself to worse behaviour on
+my part in the more interesting thoroughfares of this great city.
+
+So we passed it by, and rode under the very walls by way of an avenue
+of flowering chestnuts, round to the northern side, until we emerged
+suddenly upon the sands of Po, and I had my first view at close quarters
+of that mighty river flowing gently about the islands, all thick with
+willows, that seemed to float upon its gleaming waters.
+
+Fishermen were at work in a boat out in mid-stream, heaving their nets
+to the sound of the oddest cantilena, and I was all for pausing there
+to watch their operations. But Arcolano urged me onward with that
+impatience of his which took no account of my very natural curiosity.
+Presently I drew rein again with exclamations of delight and surprise to
+see the wonderful bridge of boats that spanned the river a little higher
+up.
+
+But we had reached our destination. Arcolano called a halt at the gates
+of a villa that stood a little way back from the road on slightly rising
+ground near the Fodesta Gate. He bade one of the grooms get down and
+open, and presently we ambled up a short avenue between tall banks of
+laurel, to the steps of the villa itself.
+
+It was a house of fair proportions, though to me at the time, accustomed
+to the vast spaces of Mondolfo, it seemed the merest hut. It was painted
+white, and it had green Venetian shutters which gave it a cool and
+pleasant air; and through one of the open windows floated a sound of
+merry voices, in which a woman's laugh was predominant.
+
+The double doors stood open and through these there emerged a moment
+after our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us
+swiftly, whose thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano
+in the pause he made before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of
+ill-fitting shoes.
+
+This was Messer Astorre Fifanti, the pedant under whom I was to study,
+and with whom I was to take up my residence for some months to come.
+
+Seeing in him one who was to be set in authority over me, I surveyed him
+with the profoundest interest, and from that instant I disliked him.
+
+He was, as I have said, a tall, thin man; and he had long hands
+that were very big and bony in the knuckles. Indeed they looked like
+monstrous skeleton hands with a glove of skin stretched over them. He
+was quite bald, save for a curly grizzled fringe that surrounded the
+back of his head, on a level with his enormous ears, and his forehead
+ran up to the summit of his egg-shaped head. His nose was pendulous and
+his eyes were closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty. He wore
+no beard, and his leathery cheeks were blue from the razor. His age
+may have been fifty; his air was mean and sycophantic. Finally he was
+dressed in a black gaberdine that descended to his knees, and he ended
+in a pair of the leanest shanks and largest feet conceivable.
+
+To greet us he fawned and washed his bony hands in the air.
+
+"You have made a safe journey, then," he purred. "Benedicamus Dominum!"
+
+"Deo gratias!" rumbled the fat priest, as he heaved his rotundity from
+the saddle with the assistance of one of the grooms.
+
+They shook hands, and Fifanti turned to survey me for the second time.
+
+"And this is my noble charge!" said he. "Salve! Be welcome to my house,
+Messer Agostino."
+
+I got to earth, accepted his proffered hand, and thanked him.
+
+Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came
+hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors.
+
+I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time
+Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too,
+of some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon
+which he desired the priest's rare judgment.
+
+Arcolano hesitated, and his gluttonous mouth quivered and twitched. But
+he excused himself in the end. He must on. He had business to discharge
+in the town, and he must return at once and render an account of our
+safe journey to the Countess at Mondolfo. If he tarried now it would
+grow late ere he reached Mondolfo, and late travelling pleased him not
+at all. As it was his bones would be weary and his flesh tender from so
+much riding; but he would offer it up to Heaven for his sins.
+
+And when the too-amiable Fifanti had protested how little there could
+be the need in the case of one so saintly as Messer Arcolano, the
+priest made his farewells. He gave me his blessing and enjoined upon me
+obedience to one who stood to me in loco parentis, heaved himself back
+on to his mule, and departed with the grooms at his heels.
+
+Then Doctor Fifanti set a bony hand upon my shoulder, and opined that
+after my journey I must be in need of refreshment; and with that he led
+me within doors, assuring me that in his house the needs of the body
+were as closely cared for as the needs of the mind.
+
+"For an empty belly," he ended with his odious, sycophantic geniality,
+"makes an empty heart and an empty head."
+
+We passed through a hall that was prettily paved in mosaics, into a
+chamber of good proportions, which seemed gay to me after the gloom by
+which I had been surrounded.
+
+The ceiling was painted blue and flecked with golden stars, whilst the
+walls were hung with deep blue tapestries on which was figured in grey
+and brownish red a scene which, I was subsequently to learn, represented
+the metamorphosis of Actaeon. At the moment I did not look too closely.
+The figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused
+me quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes.
+
+A good-sized table stood in the middle of the floor, bearing, upon a
+broad strip of embroidered white napery, sparkling crystal and silver,
+vessels of wine and platters of early fruits. About it sat a very noble
+company of some half-dozen men and two very resplendent women. One of
+these was slight and little, very dark and vivacious with eyes full of
+a malicious humour. The other, of very noble proportions, of a fine,
+willowy height, with coiled ropes of hair of a colour such as I had
+never dreamed could be found upon human being. It was ruddy and glowed
+like metal. Her face and neck--and of the latter there was a very
+considerable display--were of the warm pale tint of old ivory. She had
+large, low-lidded eyes, which lent her face a languid air. Her brow was
+low and broad, and her lips of a most startling red against the pallor
+of the rest.
+
+She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow
+smile, holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous
+welcome.
+
+"This, Ser Agostino," said Fifanti, "is my wife."
+
+Had he announced her to be his daughter it would have been more credible
+on the score of their respective years, though equally incredible on the
+score of their respective personalities.
+
+I gaped foolishly in my amazement, a little dazzled, too, by the
+effulgence of her eyes, which were now raised to the level of my own. I
+lowered my glance abashed, and answered her as courteously as I could.
+Then she led me to the table, and presented me to the company, naming
+each to me.
+
+The first was a slim and very dainty young gentleman in a scarlet
+walking-suit, over which he wore a long scarlet mantle. A gold cross was
+suspended from his neck by a massive chain of gold. He was delicately
+featured, with a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair
+hair that fell in waves about his effeminate face. He had the whitest
+of hands, very delicately veined in blue, and it was--as I soon
+observed--his habit to carry them raised, so that the blood might not
+flow into them to coarsen their beauty. Attached to his left wrist by a
+fine chain was a gold pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very
+beautifully chiselled. Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous
+sapphire ring of his rank.
+
+That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from
+being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence--never dreaming
+that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a
+guest so exalted.
+
+He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of
+Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
+
+The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed
+personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had
+pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.
+
+He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of
+the man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing
+his ring. I knelt to kiss it, overawed by his ecclesiastical rank,
+however little awed by the man within it.
+
+As I rose again he looked up at me considering my inches.
+
+"Why," said he, "here is a fine soldier lost to glory." And as he spoke,
+he half turned to a young man who sat beside him, a man at whom I was
+eager to take a fuller look, for his face was most strangely familiar to
+me.
+
+He was tall and graceful, very beautifully dressed in purple and gold,
+and his blue-black hair was held in a net or coif of finest gold thread.
+His garments clung as tightly and smoothly as if he had been kneaded
+into them--as, indeed, he had. But it was his face that held my eyes. It
+was a sun-tanned, shaven hawk-face with black level brows, black eyes,
+and a strong jaw, handsome save for something displeasing in the lines
+of the mouth, something sardonic, proud, and contemptuous.
+
+The Cardinal addressed him. "You breed fine fellows in your family,
+Cosimo," were the words with which he startled me, and then I knew where
+I had seen that face before. In my mirror.
+
+He was as like me--save that he was blacker and not so tall--as if he
+had been own brother to me instead of merely cousin as I knew at once
+he was. For he must be that guelphic Anguissola renegade who served
+the Pope and was high in favour with Farnese, and Captain of Justice in
+Piacenza. In age he may have been some seven or eight years older than
+myself.
+
+I stared at him now with interest, and I found attractions in him, the
+chief of which was his likeness to my father. So must my father have
+looked when he was this fellow's age. He returned my glance with a smile
+that did not improve his countenance, so contemptuously languid was it,
+so very supercilious.
+
+"You may stare, cousin," said he, "for I think I do you the honour to be
+something like you."
+
+"You will find him," lisped the Cardinal to me, "the most
+self-complacent dog in Italy. When he sees in you a likeness to himself
+he flatters himself grossly, which, as you know him better, you will
+discover to be his inveterate habit. He is his own most assiduous
+courtier." And my Lord Gambara sank back into his chair, languishing,
+the pomander to his nostrils.
+
+All laughed, and Messer Cosimo with them, still considering me.
+
+But Messer Fifanti's wife had yet to make me known to three others who
+sat there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady. This last was a cousin of
+her own--Donna Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for the first and
+last time.
+
+The three remaining men of the company are of little interest save one,
+whose name was to be well known--nay, was well known already, though not
+to one who had lived in such seclusion as mine.
+
+This was that fine poet Annibale Caro, whom I have heard judged to be
+all but the equal of the great Petrarca himself. A man who had less the
+air of a poet it would not be easy to conceive. He was of middle height
+and of a habit of body inclining to portliness, and his age may have
+been forty. His face was bearded, ruddy, and small-featured, and there
+was about him an air of smug prosperity; he was dressed with care, but
+he had none of the splendour of the Cardinal or my cousin. Let me add
+that he was secretary to the Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and that he was
+here in Piacenza on a mission to the Governor in which his master's
+interests were concerned.
+
+The other two who completed that company are of no account, and indeed
+their names escape me, though I seem to remember that one was named
+Pacini and that he was said to be a philosopher of considerable parts.
+
+Bidden to table by Messer Fifanti, I took the chair he offered me beside
+his lady, and presently came the old servant whom already I had seen,
+bearing meat for me. I was hungry, and I fell to with zest, what time
+a pleasant ripple of talk ran round the board. Facing me sat my cousin,
+and I never observed until my hunger was become less clamorous with what
+an insistence he regarded me. At last, however, our eyes met across the
+board. He smiled that crooked, somewhat unpleasant smile of his.
+
+"And so, Ser Agostino, they are to make a priest of you?" said he.
+
+"God pleasing," I answered soberly, and perhaps shortly.
+
+"And if his brains at all resemble his body," lisped the
+Cardinal-legate, "you may live to see an Anguissola Pope, my Cosimo."
+
+My stare must have betrayed my amazement at such words. "Not so,
+magnificent," I made answer. "I am destined for the life monastic."
+
+"Monastic!" quoth he, in a sort of horror, and looking as if a bad smell
+had suddenly been thrust under his nose. He shrugged and pouted and
+had fresh recourse to his pomander. "O, well! Friars have become popes
+before to-day."
+
+"I am to enter the hermit order of St. Augustine," I again corrected.
+
+"Ah!" said Caro, in his big, full voice. "He aspires not to Rome but to
+Heaven, my lord."
+
+"Then what the devil does he in your house, Fifanti?" quoth the
+Cardinal. "Are you to teach him sanctity?"
+
+And the table shook with laughter at a jest I did not understand any
+more than I understood my Lord Cardinal.
+
+Messer Fifanti, sitting at the table-head, shot me a glance of anxious
+inquiry; he smiled foolishly, and washed his hands in the air again, his
+mind fumbling for an answer that should turn aside that barbed jest. But
+he was forestalled by my cousin Cosimo.
+
+"The teaching might come more aptly from Monna Giuliana," said he, and
+smiled very boldly across at Fifanti's lady who sat beside me, whilst a
+frown grew upon the prodigious brow of the pedant.
+
+"Indeed, indeed," the Cardinal murmured, considering her through
+half-closed eyes, "there is no man but may enter Paradise at her
+bidding." And he sighed furiously, whilst she chid him for his boldness;
+and for all that much of what they said was in a language that might
+have been unknown to me, yet was I lost in amazement to see a prelate
+made so free with. She turned to me, and the glory of her eyes fell
+about my soul like an effulgence.
+
+"Do not heed them, Ser Agostino. They are profane and wicked men,"
+she said, "and if you aspire to holiness, the less you see of them the
+better will it be for you."
+
+I did not doubt it, yet I dared not make so bold as to confess it, and I
+wondered why they should laugh to hear her earnest censure of them.
+
+"It is a thorny path, this path of holiness," said the Cardinal sighing.
+
+"Your excellency has been told so, we assume," quoth Caro, who had a
+very bitter tongue for one who looked so well-nourished and contented.
+
+"I might have found it so for myself but that my lot has been cast among
+sinners," answered the Cardinal, comprehending the company in his glance
+and gesture. "As it is, I do what I can to mend their lot."
+
+"Now here is gallantry of a different sort!" cried the little Leocadia
+with a giggle.
+
+"O, as to that," quoth Cosimo, showing his fine teeth in a smile, "there
+is a proverb as to the gallantry of priests. It is like the love of
+women, which again is like water in a basket--as soon in as out." And
+his eyes hung upon Giuliana.
+
+"When you are the basket, sir captain, shall anyone blame the women?"
+she countered with her lazy insolence.
+
+"Body of God!" cried the Cardinal, and laughed wholeheartedly, whilst
+my cousin scowled. "There you have the truth, Cosimo, and the truth is
+better than proverbs."
+
+"It is unlucky to speak of the dead at table," put in Caro.
+
+"And who spoke of the dead, Messer Annibale?" quoth Leocadia.
+
+"Did not my Lord Cardinal mention Truth?" answered the brutal poet.
+
+"You are a derider--a gross sinner," said the Cardinal languidly. "Stick
+to your verses, man, and leave Truth alone."
+
+"Agreed--if your excellency will stick to Truth and quit writing verses.
+I offer the compact in the interest of humanity, which will be the
+gainer."
+
+The company shook with laughter at this direct and offensive hit. But my
+Lord Gambara seemed nowise incensed. Indeed, I was beginning to conclude
+that the man had a sweetness and tolerance of nature that bordered on
+the saintly.
+
+He sipped his wine thoughtfully, and held it up to the light so that the
+deep ruby of it sparkled in the Venetian crystal.
+
+"You remind me that I have written a new song," said he.
+
+"Then have I sinned indeed," groaned Caro.
+
+But Gambara, disregarding the interruption, his glass still raised, his
+mild eyes upon the wine, began to recite:
+
+     "Bacchus saepe visitans
+      Mulierum genus
+      Facit eas subditas
+      Tibi, O tu Venus!"
+
+Without completely understanding it, yet scandalized beyond measure at
+as much as I understood, to hear such sentiments upon his priestly lips,
+I stared at him in candid horror.
+
+But he got no farther. Caro smote the table with his fist.
+
+"When wrote you that, my lord?" he cried.
+
+"When?" quoth the Cardinal, frowning at the interruption. "Why,
+yestereve."
+
+"Ha!" It was something between a bark and a laugh from Messer Caro. "In
+that case, my lord, memory usurped the place of invention. That song was
+sung at Pavia when I was a student--which is more years ago than I care
+to think of."
+
+The Cardinal smiled upon him, unabashed. "And what then, pray? Can we
+avoid these things? Why, the very Virgil whom you plagiarize so freely
+was himself a plagiarist."
+
+Now this, as you may well conceive, provoked a discussion about the
+board, in which all joined, not excepting Fifanti's lady and Donna
+Leocadia.
+
+I listened in some amazement and deep interest to matters that were
+entirely strange to me, to the arguing of mysteries which seemed to
+me--even from what I heard of them--to be strangely attractive.
+
+Anon Fifanti joined in the discussion, and I observed how as soon as he
+began to speak they all fell silent, all listened to him as to a master,
+what time he delivered himself of his opinions and criticisms of this
+Virgil, with a force, a lucidity and an eloquence that revealed his
+learning even to one so ignorant as myself.
+
+He was listened to with deference by all, if we except perhaps my Lord
+Gambara, who had no respect for anything and who preferred to whisper
+to Leocadia under cover of his hand, ogling her what time she simpered.
+Once or twice Monna Giuliana flashed him an unfriendly glance, and this
+I accounted natural, deeming that she resented this lack of attention to
+the erudite dissertation of her husband.
+
+But as for the others, they were attentive, as I have said, and even
+Messer Caro, who at the time--as I gathered then--was engaged upon
+a translation of Virgil into Tuscan, and who, therefore, might be
+accounted something of an authority, held his peace and listened what
+time the doctor reasoned and discoursed.
+
+Fifanti's mean, sycophantic air fell away from him as by magic. Warmed
+by his subject and his enthusiasm he seemed suddenly ennobled, and I
+found him less antipathic; indeed, I began to see something admirable in
+the man, some of that divine quality that only deep culture and learning
+can impart.
+
+I conceived that now, at last, I held the explanation of how it came to
+pass that so distinguished a company frequented his house and gathered
+on such familiar terms about his board.
+
+And I began to be less amazed at the circumstance that he should possess
+for wife so beautiful and superb a creature as Madonna Giuliana. I
+thought that I obtained glimpses of the charm which that elderly man
+might be able to exert upon a fine and cultured young nature with
+aspirations for things above the commonplace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. HUMANITIES
+
+
+As the days passed and swelled into weeks, and these, in their turn,
+accumulated into months, I grew rapidly learned in worldly matters at
+Doctor Fifanti's house.
+
+The curriculum I now pursued was so vastly different from that which my
+mother had bidden Fra Gervasio to set me, and my acquaintance with the
+profane writers advanced so swiftly once it was engaged upon, that I
+acquired knowledge as a weed grows.
+
+Fifanti flung into strange passions when he discovered the extent of my
+ignorance and the amazing circumstance that whilst Fra Gervasio had made
+of me a fluent Latin scholar, he had kept me in utter ignorance of the
+classic writers, and almost in as great an ignorance of history itself.
+This the pedant set himself at once to redress, and amongst the earliest
+works he gave me as preparation were Latin translations of Thucydides
+and Herodotus which I devoured--especially the glowing pages of the
+latter--at a speed that alarmed my tutor.
+
+But mere studiousness was not my spur, as he imagined. I was enthralled
+by the novelty of the matters that I read, so different from all those
+with which I had been allowed to become acquainted hitherto.
+
+There followed Tacitus, and after him Cicero and Livy, which latter two
+I found less arresting; then came Lucretius, and his De Rerum Naturae
+proved a succulent dish to my inquisitive appetite.
+
+But the cream and glory of the ancient writers I had yet to taste. My
+first acquaintance with the poets came from the translation of Virgil
+upon which Messer Caro was at the time engaged. He had definitely taken
+up his residence in Piacenza, whither it was said that Farnese, his
+master, who was to be made our Duke, would shortly come. And in the
+interval of labouring for Farnese, as Caro was doing, he would toil at
+his translation, and from time to time he would bring sheaves of his
+manuscript to the doctor's house, to read what he had accomplished.
+
+He came, I remember, one languid afternoon in August, when I had been
+with Messer Fifanti for close upon three months, during which time my
+mind had gradually, yet swiftly, been opening out like a bud under the
+sunlight of much new learning. We sat in the fine garden behind the
+house, on the lawn, in the shade of mulberry trees laden with yellow
+translucent fruit, by a pond that was all afloat with water-lilies.
+
+There was a crescent-shaped seat of hewn marble, over which Messer
+Gambara, who was with us, had thrown his scarlet cardinal's cloak, the
+day being oppressively hot. He was as usual in plain, walking clothes,
+and save for the ring on his finger and the cross on his breast, you
+had never conceived him an ecclesiastic. He sat near his cloak, upon
+the marble seat, and beside him sat Monna Giuliana, who was all in white
+save for the gold girdle at her waist.
+
+Caro, himself, stood to read, his bulky manuscript in his hands. Against
+the sundial, facing the poet, leaned the tall figure of Messer Fifanti,
+his bald head uncovered and shining humidly, his eyes ever and anon
+stealing a look at his splendid wife where she sat so demurely at the
+prelate's side.
+
+Myself, I lay on the grass near the pond, my hand trailing in the cool
+water, and at first I was not greatly interested. The heat of the day
+and the circumstance that we had dined, when played upon by the poet's
+booming and somewhat monotonous voice, had a lulling effect from which
+I was in danger of falling asleep. But anon, as the narrative warmed
+and quickened, the danger was well overpast. I was very wide-awake, my
+pulses throbbing, my imagination all on fire. I sat up and listened
+with an enthralled attention, unconscious of everything and everybody,
+unconscious even of the very voice of the reader, intent only upon the
+amazing, tragic matter that he read.
+
+For it happened that this was the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, and the
+most lamentable, heartrending story of Dido's love for Aeneas, of his
+desertion of her, of her grief and death upon the funeral pyre.
+
+It held me spellbound. It was more real then anything that I had ever
+read or heard; and the fate of Dido moved me as if I had known and loved
+her; so that long ere Messer Caro came to an end I was weeping freely in
+a most exquisite misery.
+
+Thereafter I was as one who has tasted strong wine and finds his thirst
+fired by it. Within a week I had read the Aeneid through, and was
+reading it a second time. Then came the Comedies of Terence, the
+Metamorphoses of Ovid, Martial, and the Satires of Juvenal. And
+with those my transformation was complete. No longer could I find
+satisfaction in the writings of the fathers of the church, or in
+contemplating the lives of the saints, after the pageantries which the
+eyes of my soul had looked upon in the profane authors.
+
+What instructions my mother supposed Fifanti to have received concerning
+me from Arcolano, I cannot think. But certain it is that she could never
+have dreamed under what influences I was so soon to come, no more than
+she could conceive what havoc they played with all that hitherto I had
+learnt and with the resolutions that I had formed--and that she had
+formed for me--concerning the future.
+
+All this reading perturbed me very oddly, as one is perturbed who having
+long dwelt in darkness is suddenly brought into the sunlight and dazzled
+by it, so that, grown conscious of his sight, he is more effectively
+blinded than he was before. For the process that should have been a
+gradual one from tender years was carried through in what amounted to
+little more than a few weeks.
+
+My Lord Gambara took an odd interest in me. He was something of
+a philosopher in his trivial way; something of a student of his
+fellow-man; and he looked upon me as an odd human growth that was being
+subjected to an unusual experiment. I think he took a certain delight in
+helping that experiment forward; and certain it is that he had more to
+do with the debauching of my mind than any other, or than any reading
+that I did.
+
+It was not that he told me more than elsewhere I could have learnt; it
+was the cynical manner in which he conveyed his information. He had a
+way of telling me of monstrous things as if they were purely normal and
+natural to a properly focussed eye, and as if any monstrousness they
+might present to me were due to some distortion imparted to them solely
+by the imperfection of my intellectual vision.
+
+Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning
+Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on
+whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy
+of Parma and Piacenza.
+
+One day as we walked together in the garden--my Lord Gambara and I--I
+asked him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
+
+"His claim?" quoth he, checking, to give me a long, cool stare. He
+laughed shortly and resumed his pacing, I keeping step with him. "Why,
+is he not the Pope's son, and is not that claim enough?"
+
+"The Pope's son!" I exclaimed. "But how is it possible that the Holy
+Father should have a son?"
+
+"How is it possible?" he echoed mockingly. "Why, I will tell you, sir.
+When our present Holy Father went as Cardinal-legate to the Mark of
+Ancona, he met there a certain lady whose name was Lola, who pleased
+him, and who was pleased with him. Alessandro Farnese was a handsome
+man, Ser Agostino. She bore him three children, of whom one is dead,
+another is Madonna Costanza, who is wed to Sforza of Santafiora, and the
+third--who really happens to have been the first-born--is Messer Pier
+Luigi, present Duke of Castro and future Duke of Piacenza."
+
+It was some time ere I could speak.
+
+"But his vows, then?" I exclaimed at last.
+
+"Ah! His vows!" said the Cardinal-legate. "True, there were his vows.
+I had forgotten that. No doubt he did the same." And he smiled
+sardonically, sniffing at his pomander-ball.
+
+From that beginning in a fresh branch of knowledge much followed
+quickly. Under my questionings, Messer Gambara very readily made me
+acquainted through his unsparing eyes with that cesspool that was known
+as the Roman Curia. And my horror, my disillusionment increased at every
+word he said.
+
+I learnt from him that Pope Paul III was no exception to the rule, no
+such scandal as I had imagined; that his own elevation to the purple was
+due in origin to the favour which his sister, the beautiful Giulia, had
+found in the eyes of the Borgia Pope, some fifty years ago. Through him
+I came to know the Sacred College as it really was; not the very home
+and fount of Christianity, as I had deemed it, controlled and guided
+by men of a sublime saintliness of ways, but a gathering of ambitious
+worldlings, who had become so brazen in their greed of temporal power
+that they did not even trouble to cloak the sin and evil in which they
+lived; men in whom the spirit that had actuated those saints the study
+of whose lives had been my early delight, lived no more than it might
+live in the bosom of a harlot.
+
+I said so to him one day in a wild, furious access of boldness, in one
+of those passionate outbursts that are begotten of illusions blighted.
+
+He heard me through quite calmly, without the least trace of anger,
+smiling ever his quiet mocking smile, and plucking at his little, auburn
+beard.
+
+"You are wrong, I think," he said. "Say that the Church has fallen
+a prey to self-seekers who have entered it under the cloak of the
+priesthood. What then? In their hands the Church has been enriched. She
+has gained power, which she must retain. And that is to the Church's
+good."
+
+"And what of the scandal of it?" I stormed.
+
+"O, as to that--why, boy, have you never read Boccaccio?"
+
+"Never," said I.
+
+"Read him, then," he urged me. "He will teach you much that you need
+to know. And read in particular the story of Abraam, the Jew, who upon
+visiting Rome was so scandalized by the licence and luxury of the
+clergy that he straightway had himself baptized and became a Christian,
+accounting that a religion that could survive such wiles of Satan to
+destroy it must indeed be the true religion, divinely inspired." He
+laughed his little cynical laugh to see my confusion increased by that
+bitter paradox.
+
+It is little wonder that I was all bewildered, that I was like some poor
+mariner upon unknown waters, without stars or compass.
+
+Thus that summer ebbed slowly, and the time of my projected minor
+ordination approached. Messer Gambara's visits to Fifanti's grew more
+and more frequent, until they became a daily occurrence; and now my
+cousin Cosimo came oftener too. But it was their custom to come in the
+forenoon, when I was at work with Fifanti. And often I observed the
+doctor to be oddly preoccupied, and to spend much time in creeping to
+the window that was all wreathed in clematis, and in peeping through
+that purple-decked green curtain into the garden where his excellency
+and Cosimo walked with Monna Giuliana.
+
+When both visitors were there his anxiety seemed less. But if only
+one were present he would give himself no peace. And once when Messer
+Gambara and she went together within doors, he abruptly interrupted my
+studies, saying that it was enough for that day; and he went below to
+join them.
+
+Half a year earlier I should have had no solution for his strange
+behaviour. But I had learnt enough of the world by now to perceive what
+maggot was stirring in that egg-shaped head. Yet I blushed for him, and
+for his foul and unworthy suspicions. As soon would I have suspected the
+painted Madonna from the brush of Raffaele Santi that I had seen over
+the high altar of the Church of San Sisto, as suspect the beautiful
+and noble-souled Giuliana of giving that old pedant cause for his
+uneasiness. Still, I conceived that this was the penalty that such a
+withered growth of humanity must pay for having presumed to marry a
+young wife.
+
+We were much together in those days, Monna Giuliana and I. Our intimacy
+had grown over a little incident that it were well I should mention.
+
+A young painter, Gianantonio Regillo, better known to the world as Il
+Pordenone, had come to Piacenza that summer to decorate the Church
+of Santa Maria della Campagna. He came furnished with letters to the
+Governor, and Gambara had brought him to Fifanti's villa. From Monna
+Giuliana the young painter heard the curious story of my having been
+vowed prenatally to the cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine,
+and the hope that was entertained that I should walk in the ways of St.
+Augustine after whom I had been christened.
+
+It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a
+fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having
+seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion
+of using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and
+daily for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the
+time Monna Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.
+
+That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there--O
+bitter irony!--you may see me to this day, as the saint in whose ways it
+was desired that I should follow.
+
+Monna Giuliana and I would linger together in talk after the painter had
+gone; and this would be at about the time that I had my first lessons
+of Curial life from my Lord Gambara. You will remember that he mentioned
+Boccaccio to me, and I chanced to ask her was there in the library a
+copy of that author's tales.
+
+"Has that wicked priest bidden you to read them?" she inquired, 'twixt
+seriousness and mockery, her dark eyes upon me in one of those glances
+that never left me easy.
+
+I told her what had passed; and with a sigh and a comment that I would
+get an indigestion from so much mental nourishment as I was consuming,
+she led me to the little library to find the book.
+
+Messer Fifanti's was a very choice collection of works, and every one
+in manuscript; for the doctor was something of an idealist, and greatly
+averse to the printing-press and the wide dissemination of books to
+which it led. Out of his opposition to the machine grew a dislike to
+its productions, which he denounced as vulgar; and not even their
+comparative cheapness and the fact that, when all was said, he was a man
+of limited means, would induce him to harbour a single volume that was
+so produced.
+
+Along the shelves she sought, and finally drew down four heavy tomes.
+Turning the pages of the first, she found there, with a readiness that
+argued a good acquaintance with the work, the story of Abraam the Jew,
+which I desired to read as it had been set down. She bade me read it
+aloud, which I did, she seated in the window, listening to me.
+
+At first I read with some constraint and shyness, but presently warming
+to my task and growing interested, I became animated and vivacious in my
+manner, so that when I ceased I saw her sitting there, her hands clasped
+about one knee, her eyes upon my face, her lips parted a little, the
+very picture of interest.
+
+And with that it happened that we established a custom, and very often,
+almost daily, after dinner, we would repair together to the library, and
+I--who hitherto had no acquaintance with any save Latin works--began to
+make and soon to widen my knowledge of our Tuscan writers. We varied our
+reading. We dipped into our poets. Dante we read, and Petrarca, and both
+we loved, though better than the works of either--and this for the sake
+of the swift movement and action that is in his narrative, though his
+melodies, I realized, were not so pure--the Orlando of Ariosto.
+
+Sometimes we would be joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed
+very long. He had an old-fashioned contempt for writings in what he
+called the "dialettale," and he loved the solemn injuvenations of
+the Latin tongue. Soon, as he listened, he would begin to yawn, and
+presently grunt and rise and depart, flinging a contemptuous word at
+the matter of my reading, and telling me at times that I might find more
+profitable amusement.
+
+But I persisted in it, guided ever by Fifanti's lady. And whatever
+we read by way of divergence, ever and anon we would come back to the
+stilted, lucid, vivid pages of Boccaccio.
+
+One day I chanced upon the tragical story of "Isabetta and the Pot of
+Basil," and whilst I read I was conscious that she had moved from where
+she had been sitting and had come to stand behind my chair. And when I
+reached the point at which the heart-broken Isabetta takes the head of
+her murdered lover to her room, a tear fell suddenly upon my hand.
+
+I stopped, and looked up at Giuliana. She smiled at me through unshed
+tears that magnified her matchless eyes.
+
+"I will read no more," I said. "It is too sad."
+
+"Ah, no!" she begged. "Read on, Agostino! I love its sadness."
+
+So I read on to the story's cruel end, and when it was done I sat quite
+still, myself a little moved by the tragedy of it, whilst Giuliana
+continued to lean against my chair. I was moved, too, in another way;
+curiously and unaccountably; and I could scarcely have defined what it
+was that moved me.
+
+I sought to break the spell of it, and turned the pages. "Let me read
+something else," said I. "Something more gay, to dispel the sadness of
+this."
+
+But her hand fell suddenly upon mine, enclasping and holding it. "Ah,
+no!" she begged me gently. "Give me the book. Let us read no more
+to-day."
+
+I was trembling under her touch--trembling, my every nerve a-quiver and
+my breath shortened--and suddenly there flashed through my mind a line
+of Dante's in the story of Paolo and Francesca:
+
+     "Quel giorno piu non vi leggemo avanti."
+
+Giuliana's words: "Let us read no more to-day"--had seemed an echo of
+that line, and the echo made me of a sudden conscious of an unsuspected
+parallel. All at once our position seemed to me strangely similar to
+that of the ill-starred lovers of Rimini.
+
+But the next moment I was sane again. She had withdrawn her hand, and
+had taken the volume to restore it to its shelf.
+
+Ah, no! At Rimini there had been two fools. Here there was but one. Let
+me make an end of him by persuading him of his folly.
+
+Yet Giuliana did nothing to assist me in that task. She returned from
+the book-shelf, and in passing lightly swept her fingers over my hair.
+
+"Come, Agostino; let us walk in the garden," said she.
+
+We went, my mood now overpast. I was as sober and self-contained as
+was my habit. And soon thereafter came my Lord Gambara--a rare thing to
+happen in the afternoon.
+
+Awhile the three of us were together in the garden, talking of trivial
+matters. Then she fell to wrangling with him concerning something that
+Caro had written and of which she had the manuscript. In the end she
+begged me would I go seek the writing in her chamber. I went, and hunted
+where she had bidden me and elsewhere, and spent a good ten minutes
+vainly in the task. Chagrined that I could not discover the thing, I
+went into the library, thinking that it might be there.
+
+Doctor Fifanti was writing busily at the table when I intruded. He
+looked up, thrusting his horn-rimmed spectacles high upon his peaked
+forehead.
+
+"What the devil!" quoth he very testily. "I thought you were in the
+garden with Madonna Giuliana."
+
+"My Lord Gambara is there," said I.
+
+He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand. "Do I not know
+that?" he roared, though I could see no reason for all this heat. "And
+why are you not with them?"
+
+You are not to suppose that I was still the meek, sheepish lad who had
+come to Piacenza three months ago. I had not been learning my world and
+discovering Man to no purpose all this while.
+
+"It has yet to be explained to me," said I, "under what obligation I
+am to be anywhere but where I please. That firstly. Secondly--but of
+infinitely lesser moment--Monna Giuliana has sent me for the manuscript
+of Messer Caro's Gigli d'Oro."
+
+I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him. But
+quiet he became.
+
+"I... I was vexed by your interruption," he said lamely, to explain his
+late choler. "Here is the thing. I found it here when I came. Messer
+Caro might discover better employment for his leisure. But there,
+there"--he seemed in sudden haste again. "Take it to her in God's name.
+She will be impatient." I thought he sneered. "O, she will praise your
+diligence," he added, and this time I was sure that he sneered.
+
+I took it, thanked him, and left the room intrigued. And when I rejoined
+them, and handed her the manuscript, the odd thing was that the subject
+of their discourse having meanwhile shifted, it no longer interested
+her, and she never once opened the pages she had been in such haste to
+have me procure.
+
+This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world
+
+But I was not done with riddles. For presently out came Fifanti himself,
+looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual. He
+was arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby
+slippers on his long, lean feet. He was ever a man of most indifferent
+personal habits.
+
+"Ah, Astorre," his wife greeted him. "My Lord Cardinal brings you good
+tidings."
+
+"Does he so?" quoth Fifanti, sourly as I thought; and he looked at
+the legate as though his excellency were the very reverse of a happy
+harbinger.
+
+"You will rejoice, I think, doctor," said the smiling prelate, "to hear
+that I have letters from my Lord Pier Luigi appointing you one of the
+ducal secretaries. And this, I doubt not, will be followed, on his
+coming hither, by an appointment to his council. Meanwhile, the stipend
+is three hundred ducats, and the work is light."
+
+There followed a long and baffling silence, during which the doctor grew
+first red, then pale, then red again, and Messer Gambara stood with his
+scarlet cloak sweeping about his shapely limbs, sniffing his pomander
+and smiling almost insolently into the other's face; and some of the
+insolence of his look, I thought, was reflected upon the pale, placid
+countenance of Giuliana.
+
+At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing.
+
+"It is too much for my poor deserts," he said curtly.
+
+"You are too humble," said the prelate. "Your loyalty to the House of
+Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received..."
+
+"Hospitality!" barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so
+oddly that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks. "You would pay
+for that?" he questioned, half mockingly. "Oh, but for that a stipend of
+three hundred ducats is too little."
+
+And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as
+if she had been struck.
+
+But the Cardinal laughed outright. "Come now, you use me with an amiable
+frankness," he said. "The stipend shall be doubled when you join the
+council."
+
+"Doubled?" he said. "Six hundred...?" He checked. The sum was vast. I
+saw greed creep into his little eyes. What had troubled him hitherto,
+I could not fathom even yet. He washed his bony hands in the air, and
+looked at his wife again. "It... it is a fair price, no doubt, my lord,"
+said he, his tone contemptuous.
+
+"The Duke shall be informed of the value of your learning," lisped the
+Cardinal.
+
+Fifanti knit his brows. "The value of my learning?" he echoed, as if
+slowly puzzled. "My learning? Oh! Is that in question?"
+
+"Why else should we give you the appointment?" smiled the Cardinal, with
+a smile that was full of significance.
+
+"It is what the town will be asking, no doubt," said Messer Fifanti. "I
+hope you will be able to satisfy its curiosity, my lord."
+
+And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling,
+as I could perceive.
+
+My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of
+Monna Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be
+hateful to me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already
+profound mystification.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+
+In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than
+ever. Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not
+a day passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his
+guidance, I was wrestling.
+
+And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times
+he was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of
+the serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self. He watched
+her curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she
+presented a calm front and a patience almost saintly. He was as a man
+with some mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it
+or cast it off.
+
+Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a
+creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider
+what a power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to
+my erstwhile terror. She confided in me a little in those days, but ever
+with a most saintly resignation. She had been sold into wedlock, she
+admitted, with a man who might have been her father, and she confessed
+to finding her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who
+intends none the less to bear her cross with fortitude.
+
+And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing. We had been reading
+together, she and I, as was become our custom. She had fetched me a
+volume of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side
+on the marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder
+touching mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
+
+She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare
+justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was
+confined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my Lord
+Gambara. Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday
+between Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be
+the fruit of a base and unworthy mind.
+
+I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the lines
+or the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have told
+you.
+
+Presently she checked me. "Leave now Panormitano," she said. "Here is
+something else upon which you shall give me your judgment." And she set
+before me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand,
+which was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.
+
+I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a
+heart that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner
+seemed, the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admission
+of its moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done
+that day in the library when we had read of "Isabetta and the Pot of
+Basil." Her hand was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.
+
+"Ah, thanks, Agostino," she murmured. "Your praise is sweet to me. The
+verses are my own."
+
+I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. The
+beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my
+first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I should
+have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an
+interruption.
+
+Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the
+voice of Messer Fifanti. "What do you read?"
+
+We started apart, and turned.
+
+Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we
+should not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our
+ears had been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidy
+gown of black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face.
+Slowly he put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony
+claw.
+
+He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his
+eyes up until they all but disappeared.
+
+Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and
+Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily
+in its russet sheath.
+
+He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.
+
+"Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?"
+quoth he. "Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you
+must be wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor
+illiterate gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?" He
+took the book. "Panormitano!" he roared. "Now, there's a fitting author
+for a saint in embryo! There's a fine preparation for the cloister!"
+
+He turned to Giuliana. He put forward his hand and touched her bare
+shoulder with his hideous forefinger. She cringed under the touch as if
+it were barbed.
+
+"There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress,"
+he said, with his deadly smile.
+
+"I do not," she replied indignantly. "Agostino has a taste for letters,
+and..."
+
+"Tcha! Tcha!" he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply. "I had
+no thought for letters. There is my Lord Gambara, and there is Messer
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro. There is even Pordenone,
+the painter." His lips writhed over their names. "You have friends
+enough, I think. Leave, then, Ser Agostino here. Do not dispute him with
+God to whom he has been vowed."
+
+She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall,
+and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked then
+to me.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"It is, madam," he snapped. "I agree with you." She considered him with
+eyes that held a loathing and contempt unutterable. Then she looked
+at me, and shrugged her shoulders as who would say: "You see how I am
+used!" Lastly she turned, and took her way across the lawn towards the
+house.
+
+There was a little silence between us after she had gone. I was on fire
+with indignation, and yet I could think of no words in which I might
+express it, realizing how utterly I lacked the right to be angry with a
+husband for the manner in which he chose to treat his wife.
+
+At last, pondering me very gravely, he spoke.
+
+"It were best you read no more with Madonna Giuliana," he said slowly.
+"Her tastes are not the tastes that become a man who is about to enter
+holy orders." He closed the book, which hitherto he had held open;
+closed it with an angry snap, and held it out to me.
+
+"Restore it to its shelf," he bade me.
+
+I took it, and quite submissively I went to do his bidding. But to gain
+the library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room. It stood open,
+and Giuliana herself in the doorway. We looked at each other, and seeing
+her so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forward
+to speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me.
+
+She stretched forth a hand to me. I took it and held it tight, looking
+up into her eyes.
+
+"Dear Agostino!" she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I,
+distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for
+the first time.
+
+"Giuliana!"
+
+Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss the
+hand which she had left in mine. And having kissed it I started upright
+and made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and
+waved me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and
+went to shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
+
+For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give,
+I avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were
+never once together.
+
+The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna
+sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,
+being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
+
+But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial
+as ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently
+entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
+Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and
+Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of
+that pedant.
+
+Explanation was about to be afforded me.
+
+On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was
+going afoot into the town, and solicited my escort. It was an honour
+that never before had been offered me. I reddened violently, but
+accepted it, and soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
+
+We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'
+Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing
+the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that
+garrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this new
+building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and
+so pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune,
+overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace. This
+was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very
+warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.
+
+Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring
+up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its
+summit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of
+rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching
+in that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of
+the sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies. The murmuring
+crowd looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
+
+He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he
+had been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the
+odious sin of sacrilege.
+
+"What!" I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna
+Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
+
+It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo
+and we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid me
+for the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable
+indiscretions but for her warning.
+
+"But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor
+wretch for sacrilege!" I cried. "It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is
+infamous!"
+
+"Not so loud," she laughed. "You are being stared at." And then she
+delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. "If a man being
+a sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in
+others, then is he twice a sinner."
+
+"It was my Lord Gambara taught you that," said I, and involuntarily I
+sneered.
+
+She considered me with a very searching look.
+
+"Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?"
+
+"Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks
+to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
+sequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious
+fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself."
+
+"You do not love him?" said she.
+
+"O--as to that--as a man he is well enough. But as an ecclesiastic...O,
+but there!" I broke off shortly, and laughed. "The devil take Messer
+Gambara!"
+
+She smiled. "It is greatly to be feared that he will."
+
+But my Lord Gambara was not so lightly to be dismissed that afternoon.
+As we were passing the Porta Fodesta, a little group of country-folk
+that had gathered there fell away before us, all eyes upon the dazzling
+beauty of Giuliana--as, indeed, had been the case ever since we had come
+into the town, so that I had been singularly and sweetly proud of being
+her escort. I had been conscious of the envious glances that many a
+tall fellow had sent after me, though, after all, theirs was but as the
+jealousy of Phoebus for Adonis.
+
+Wherever we had passed and eyes had followed us, men and women had
+fallen to whispering and pointing after us. And so did they now, here at
+the Fodesta Gate, but with this difference, that, at last, I overheard
+for once what was said, for there was one who did not whisper.
+
+"There goes the leman of my Lord Gambara," quoth a gruff, sneering
+voice, "the light of love of the saintly legate who is starving Domenico
+to death in a cage for the sin of sacrilege."
+
+Not a doubt but that he would have added more, but that at that moment
+a woman's shrill voice drowned his utterance. "Silence, Giuffre!" she
+admonished him fearfully. "Silence, on your life!"
+
+I had halted in my stride, suddenly cold from head to foot, as on that
+day when I had flung Rinolfo from top to bottom of the terrace steps
+at Mondolfo. It happened that I wore a sword for the first time in my
+life--a matter from which I gathered great satisfaction--having been
+adjudged worthy of the honour by virtue that I was to be Madonna's
+escort. To the hilt I now set hand impetuously, and would have turned to
+strike that foul slanderer dead, but that Giuliana restrained me, a wild
+alarm in her eyes.
+
+"Come!" she panted in a whisper. "Come away!"
+
+So imperious was the command that it conveyed to my mind some notion of
+the folly I should commit did I not obey it. I saw at once that did
+I make an ensample of this scurrilous scandalmonger I should thereby
+render her the talk of that vile town. So I went on, but very white and
+stiff, and breathing somewhat hard; for pent-up passion is an evil thing
+to house.
+
+Thus came we out of the town and to the shady banks of the gleaming
+Po. And then, at last, when we were quite alone, and within two hundred
+yards of Fifanti's house, I broke at last the silence.
+
+I had been thinking very busily, and the peasant's words had illumined
+for me a score of little obscure matters, had explained to me the queer
+behaviour and the odd speeches of Fifanti himself since that evening in
+the garden when the Cardinal-legate had announced to him his appointment
+as ducal secretary. I checked now in my stride, and turned to face her.
+
+"Was it true?" I asked, rendered brutally direct by a queer pain I felt
+as a result of my thinking.
+
+She looked up into my face so sadly and wistfully that my suspicions
+fell from me upon the instant, and I reddened from shame at having
+harboured them.
+
+"Agostino!" she cried, such a poor little cry of pain that I set my
+teeth hard and bowed my head in self-contempt.
+
+Then I looked at her again.
+
+"Yet the foul suspicion of that lout is shared by your husband himself,"
+said I.
+
+"The foul suspicion--yes," she answered, her eyes downcast, her cheeks
+faintly tinted. And then, quite suddenly, she moved forward. "Come," she
+bade me. "You are being foolish."
+
+"I shall be mad," said I, "ere I have done with this." And I fell into
+step again beside her. "If I could not avenge you there, I can avenge
+you here." And I pointed to the house. "I can smite this rumour at its
+foulest point."
+
+Her hand fell on my arm. "What would you do?" she cried.
+
+"Bid your husband retract and sue to you for pardon, or else tear out
+his lying throat," I answered, for I was in a great rage by now.
+
+She stiffened suddenly. "You go too fast, Messer Agostino," said she.
+"And you are over-eager to enter into that which does not concern you.
+I do not know that I have given you the right to demand of my husband
+reason of the manner in which he deals with me. It is a thing that
+touches only my husband and myself."
+
+I was abashed; I was humiliated; I was nigh to tears. I choked it all
+down, and I strode on beside her, my rage smouldering within me. But it
+was flaring up again by the time we reached the house with no more words
+spoken between us. She went to her room without another glance at me,
+and I repaired straight in quest of Fifanti.
+
+I found him in the library. He had locked himself in, as was his
+frequent habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock. I stalked
+in, unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner. Then I turned to him.
+
+"You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor," said I, with all
+the directness of youth and indiscretion.
+
+He stared at me as if I had struck him--as he might have stared, rather,
+at a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back for the
+child's good, or to be amused and smile.
+
+"Ah!" he said at last. "She has been talking to you?" And he clasped his
+hands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legs
+wide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
+
+"No," said I. "I have been thinking."
+
+"In that case nothing will surprise me," he said in his sour,
+contemptuous manner. "And so you have concluded...?"
+
+"That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion."
+
+"Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfort
+me," he sneered. "And what, pray, is this suspicion?
+
+"You suspect that... that--O God! I can't utter the thing."
+
+"Take courage," he mocked me. And he thrust his head farther forward. He
+looked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
+
+"You suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara and Madonna...
+that..." I clenched my hands together, and looked into his leering face.
+"You understand me well enough," I cried, almost angrily.
+
+He looked at me seriously now, a cold glitter in his small eyes.
+
+"I wonder do you understand yourself?" he asked. "I think not. I think
+not. Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you a
+priest, and thus complete God's work."
+
+"You cannot move me by your taunts," I said. "You have a foul mind,
+Messer Fifanti."
+
+He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on the
+wooden floor.
+
+"Because," said he, "I suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambara
+and Madonna... that... You understand me," he mocked me, with a mimicry of
+my own confusion. "And what affair may it be of yours whom I suspect or
+of what I suspect them where my own are concerned?"
+
+"It is my affair, as it is the affair of every man who would be
+accounted gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady from
+the foul aspersions of slander."
+
+"Knight-errantry, by the Host!" quoth he, and his brows shot up on
+his steep brow. Then they came down again to scowl. "No doubt, my
+preux-chevalier, you will have definite knowledge of the groundlessness
+of these same slanders," he said, moving backwards, away from me,
+towards the door; and as he moved now his feet made no sound, though I
+did not yet notice this nor, indeed, his movement at all.
+
+"Knowledge?" I roared at him. "What knowledge can you need beyond what
+is afforded by her face? Look in it, Messer Fifanti, if you would see
+innocence and purity and chastity! Look in it!"
+
+"Very well," said he. "Let us look in it."
+
+And quite suddenly he pulled the door open to disclose Giuliana standing
+there, erect but in a listening attitude.
+
+"Look in it!" he mocked me, and waved one of his bony hands towards that
+perfect countenance.
+
+There was shame and confusion in her face, and some anger. But she
+turned without a word, and went quickly down the passage, followed by
+his evil, cackling laugh.
+
+Then he looked at me quite solemnly. "I think," said he, "you had best
+get to your studies. You will find more than enough to engage you there.
+Leave my affairs to me, boy."
+
+There was almost a menace in his voice, and after what had happened it
+was impossible to pursue the matter.
+
+Sheepishly, overwhelmed with confusion, I went out--a knight-errant with
+a shorn crest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+
+I had angered her! Worse; I had exposed her to humiliation at the hands
+of that unworthy animal who soiled her in thought with the slime of
+his suspicions. Through me she had been put to the shameful need of
+listening at a door, and had been subjected to the ignominy of being so
+discovered. Through me she had been mocked and derided!
+
+It was all anguish to me. For her there was no shame, no humiliation, no
+pain I would not suffer, and take joy in the suffering so that it be for
+her. But to have submitted that sweet, angelic woman to suffering--to
+have incurred her just anger! Woe me!
+
+I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy,
+feeling it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it
+her regard or her neglect. To my relief she sent word that she was not
+well and would keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked
+his blue chin and gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when
+the meal was done, I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and
+went to shut myself up again in my room.
+
+I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir. I went
+down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the
+wet grass that was all scintillant with dew. On the marble bench by the
+pond, where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and
+there was I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself.
+
+She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I
+had no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled
+me out of my musings.
+
+"Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?" quoth she.
+
+I turned to meet her laughing eyes. "You... you can forgive me?" I
+faltered foolishly.
+
+She pouted tenderly. "Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly
+out of love for me?"
+
+"It was, it was..." I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling
+myself growing red under her lazy glance.
+
+"I know it was," she answered. She set her elbows on the seat's tall
+back until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow. "And should I
+bear you a resentment, then? My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel?
+Am I but a cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband?
+O God! To have been mated to that withered pedant! To have been
+sacrificed, to have been sold into such bondage! Me miserable!"
+
+"Giuliana!" I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself.
+
+"Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?"
+
+"Hush!" I implored her. "What are you saying?"
+
+But though I begged her to be silent, my soul was avid for more such
+words from her--from her, the most perfect and beautiful of women.
+
+"Why should I not?" said she. "Is truth ever to be stifled? Ever?"
+
+I was mad, I know--quite mad. Her words had made me so. And when, to ask
+me that insistent question, she brought her face still nearer, I flung
+down the reins of my unreason and let it ride amain upon its desperate,
+reckless course. In short, I too leaned forward, I leaned forward, and I
+kissed her full upon those scarlet, parted lips.
+
+I kissed her, and fell back with a cry that was of anguish almost--so
+poignantly had the sweet, fierce pain of that kiss run through my every
+fibre. And as I cried out, so too did she, stepping back, her hands
+suddenly to her face. But the next moment she was peering up at the
+windows of the house--those inscrutable eyes that looked upon our deed;
+that looked and of which it was impossible to discern how much they
+might have seen.
+
+"If he should have seen us!" was her cry; and it moved me unpleasantly
+that such should have been the first thought my kiss inspired in her.
+"If he should have seen us! Gesu! I have enough to bear already!"
+
+"I care not," said I. "Let him see. I am not Messer Gambara. No man
+shall put an insult upon you on my account, and live."
+
+I was become the very ranting, roaring, fire-breathing type of lover who
+will slaughter a whole world to do pleasure to his mistress or to spare
+her pain--I--I--I, Agostino d'Anguissola--who was to be ordained next
+month and walk in the ways of St. Augustine!
+
+Laugh as you read--for very pity, laugh!
+
+"Nay, nay," she reassured herself. "He will be still abed. He was
+snoring when I left." And she dismissed her fears, and looked at me
+again, and returned to the matter of that kiss.
+
+"What have you done to me, Agostino?"
+
+I dropped my glance before her languid eyes. "What I have done to
+no other woman yet," I answered, a certain gloom creeping over the
+exultation that still thrilled me. "O Giuliana, what have you done to
+me? You have bewitched me; You have made me mad!" And I set my elbows on
+my knees and took my head in my hands, and sat there, overwhelmed now by
+the full consciousness of the irrevocable thing that I had done, a thing
+that must brand my soul for ever, so it seemed.
+
+To have kissed a maid would have been ill enough for one whose aims were
+mine. But to kiss a wife, to become a cicisbeo! The thing assumed in my
+mind proportions foolishly, extravagantly beyond its evil reality.
+
+"You are cruel, Agostino," she whispered behind me. She had come to lean
+again upon the back of the bench. "Am I alone to blame? Can the iron
+withstand the lodestone? Can the rain help falling upon the earth? Can
+the stream flow other than downhill?" She sighed. "Woe me! It is I who
+should be angered that you have made free of my lips. And yet I am here,
+wooing you to forgive me for the sin that is your own."
+
+I cried out at that and turned to her again, and I was very white, I
+know.
+
+"You tempted me!" was my coward's cry.
+
+"So said Adam once. Yet God thought otherwise, for Adam was as fully
+punished as was Eve." She smiled wistfully into my eyes, and my senses
+reeled again. And then old Busio, the servant, came suddenly forth
+from the house upon some domestic errand to Giuliana, and thus was that
+situation mercifully brought to an end.
+
+For the rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning,
+reciting to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in
+memory the vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was
+visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew
+more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head,
+and commended the wisdom of those who had determined upon a claustral
+life for me, admitting that I knew enough Latin to enable me to
+celebrate as well as another without too clear a knowledge of the
+meaning of what I pattered. All of which was grossly untrue, for, as
+none knew better than himself, the fluency of my Latin was above the
+common wont of students. When I told him so, he delivered himself of his
+opinion upon the common wont of students with all the sourness of his
+crabbed nature.
+
+"I'll write an ode for you upon any subject that you may set me," I
+challenged him.
+
+"Then write one upon impudence," said he. "It is a subject you should
+understand." And upon that he got up and flung out of the room in a pet
+before I could think of an answer.
+
+Left alone, I began an ode which should prove to him his lack of
+justice. But I got no further than two lines of it. Then for a spell I
+sat biting my quill, my mind and the eyes of my soul full of Giuliana.
+
+Presently I began to write again. It was not an ode, but a prayer,
+oddly profane--and it was in Italian, in the "dialettale" that provoked
+Fifanti's sneers. How it ran I have forgotten these many years. But I
+recall that in it I likened myself to a sailor navigating shoals and
+besought the pharos of Giuliana's eyes to bring me safely through,
+besought her to anoint me with her glance and so hearten me to brave the
+dangers of that procellous sea.
+
+I read it first with satisfaction, then with dismay as I realized to the
+full its amorous meaning. Lastly I tore it up and went below to dine.
+
+We were still at table when my Lord Gambara arrived. He came on
+horseback attended by two grooms whom he left to await him. He was all
+in black velvet, I remember, even to his thigh-boots which were laced
+up the sides with gold, and on his breast gleamed a fine medallion of
+diamonds. Of the prelate there was about him, as usual, nothing but the
+scarlet cloak and the sapphire ring.
+
+Fifanti rose and set a chair for him, smiling a crooked smile that
+held more hostility than welcome. None the less did his excellency pay
+Madonna Giuliana a thousand compliments as he took his seat, supremely
+calm and easy in his manner. I watched him closely, and I watched
+Giuliana, a queer fresh uneasiness pervading me.
+
+The talk was trivial and chiefly concerned with the progress of the
+barracks the legate was building and the fine new road from the middle
+of the city to the Church of Santa Chiara, which he intended should
+be called the Via Gambara, but which, despite his intentions, is known
+to-day as the Stradone Farnese.
+
+Presently my cousin arrived, full-armed and very martial by contrast
+with the velvety Cardinal. He frowned to see Messer Gambara, then
+effaced the frown and smiled as, one by one, he greeted us. Last of all
+he turned to me.
+
+"And how fares his saintliness?" quoth he.
+
+"Indeed, none too saintly," said I, speaking my thoughts aloud.
+
+He laughed. "Why, then, the sooner we are in orders, the sooner shall we
+be on the road to mending that. Is it not so, Messer Fifanti?
+
+"His ordination will profit you, I nothing doubt," said Fifanti, with
+his habitual discourtesy and acidity. "So you do well to urge it."
+
+The answer put my cousin entirely out of countenance a moment. It was
+a blunt way of reminding me that in this Cosimo I saw one who followed
+after me in the heirship to Mondolfo, and in whose interests it was that
+I should don the conventual scapulary.
+
+I looked at Cosimo's haughty face and cruel mouth, and conjectured in
+that hour whether I should have found him so very civil and pleasant a
+cousin had things been other than they were.
+
+O, a very serpent was Messer Fifanti; and I have since wondered whether
+of intent he sought to sow in my heart hatred of my guelphic cousin,
+that he might make of me a tool for his own service--as you shall come
+to understand.
+
+Meanwhile, Cosimo, having recovered, waved aside the imputation, and
+smiled easily.
+
+"Nay, there you wrong me. The Anguissola lose more than I shall gain by
+Agostino's renunciation of the world. And I am sorry for it. You believe
+me, cousin?"
+
+I answered his courteous speech as it deserved, in very courteous terms.
+This set a pleasanter humour upon all. Yet some restraint abode. Each
+sat, it seemed, as a man upon his guard. My cousin watched Gambara's
+every look whenever the latter turned to speak to Giuliana; the
+Cardinal-legate did the like by him; and Messer Fifanti watched them
+both.
+
+And, meantime, Giuliana sat there, listening now to one, now to the
+other, her lazy smile parting those scarlet lips--those lips that I had
+kissed that morning--I, whom no one thought of watching!
+
+And soon came Messer Annibale Caro, with lines from the last pages of
+his translation oozing from him. And when presently Giuliana smote her
+hands together in ecstatic pleasure at one of those same lines and
+bade him repeat it to her, he swore roundly by all the gods that are
+mentioned in Virgil that he would dedicate the work to her upon its
+completion.
+
+At this the surliness became general once more and my Lord Gambara
+ventured the opinion--and there was a note of promise, almost of threat,
+in his sleek tones--that the Duke would shortly be needing Messer Caro's
+presence in Parma; whereupon Messer Caro cursed the Duke roundly and
+with all a poet's volubility of invective.
+
+They stayed late, each intent, no doubt, upon outstaying the others.
+But since none would give way they were forced in the end to depart
+together.
+
+And whilst Messer Fifanti, as became a host, was seeing them to their
+horses, I was left alone with Giuliana.
+
+"Why do you suffer those men?" I asked her bluntly. Her delicate
+brows were raised in surprise. "Why, what now? They are very pleasant
+gentlemen, Agostino."
+
+"Too pleasant," said I, and rising I crossed to the window whence I
+could watch them getting to horse, all save Caro, who had come afoot.
+"Too pleasant by much. That prelate out of Hell, now..."
+
+"Sh!" she hissed at me, smiling, her hand raised. "Should he hear you,
+he might send you to the cage for sacrilege. O Agostino!" she cried,
+and the smiles all vanished from her face. "Will you grow cruel and
+suspicious, too?"
+
+I was disarmed. I realized my meanness and unworthiness.
+
+"Have patience with me," I implored her. "I... I am not myself to-day."
+I sighed ponderously, and fell silent as I watched them ride away. Yet
+I hated them all; and most of all I hated the dainty, perfumed,
+golden-headed Cardinal-legate.
+
+He came again upon the morrow, and we learnt from the news of which
+he was the bearer that he had carried out his threat concerning Messer
+Caro. The poet was on his way to Parma, to Duke Pier Luigi, dispatched
+thither on a mission of importance by the Cardinal. He spoke, too, of
+sending my cousin to Perugia, where a strong hand was needed, as the
+town showed signs of mutiny against the authority of the Holy See.
+
+When he had departed, Messer Fifanti permitted himself one of his bitter
+insinuations.
+
+"He desires a clear field," he said, smiling his cold smile upon
+Giuliana. "It but remains for him to discover that his Duke has need of
+me as well."
+
+He spoke of it as a possible contingency, but sarcastically, as men
+speak of things too remote to be seriously considered. He was to
+remember his words two days later when the very thing came to pass.
+
+We were at breakfast when the blow fell.
+
+There came a clatter of hooves under our windows, which stood open to
+the tepid September morning, and soon there was old Busio ushering in
+an officer of the Pontificals with a parchment tied in scarlet silk and
+sealed with the arms of Piacenza.
+
+Messer Fifanti took the package and weighed it in his hand, frowning.
+Perhaps already some foreboding of the nature of its contents was in his
+mind. Meanwhile, Giuliana poured wine for the officer, and Busio bore
+him the cup upon a salver.
+
+Fifanti ripped away silk and seals, and set himself to read. I can see
+him now, standing near the window to which he had moved to gain a better
+light, the parchment under his very nose, his short-sighted eyes screwed
+up as he acquainted himself with the letter's contents. Then I saw him
+turn a sickly leaden hue. He stared at the officer a moment and then at
+Giuliana. But I do not think that he saw either of them. His look was
+the blank look of one whose thoughts are very distant.
+
+He thrust his hands behind him, and with head forward, in that curious
+attitude so reminiscent of a bird of prey, he stepped slowly back to his
+place at the table-head. Slowly his cheeks resumed their normal tint.
+
+"Very well, sir," he said, addressing the officer. "Inform his
+excellency that I shall obey the summons of the Duke's magnificence
+without delay."
+
+The officer bowed to Giuliana, took his leave, and went, old Busio
+escorting him.
+
+"A summons from the Duke?" cried Giuliana, and then the storm broke
+
+"Ay," he answered, grimly quiet, "a summons from the Duke." And he
+tossed it across the table to her.
+
+I saw that fateful document float an instant in the air, and then,
+thrown out of poise by the blob of wax, swoop slanting to her lap.
+
+"It will come no doubt as a surprise to you," he growled; and upon that
+his hard-held passion burst all bonds that he could impose upon it.
+His great bony fist crashed down upon the board and swept a precious
+Venetian beaker to the ground, where it burst into a thousand atoms,
+spreading red wine like a bloodstain upon the floor.
+
+"Said I not that this rascal Cardinal would make a clear field for
+himself? Said I not so?" He laughed shrill and fiercely. "He would send
+your husband packing as he has sent his other rivals. O, there is a
+stipend waiting--a stipend of three hundred ducats yearly that shall be
+made into six hundred presently, and all for my complaisance, all that I
+may be a joyous and content cornuto!"
+
+He strode to the window cursing horribly, whilst Giuliana sat white of
+face with lips compressed and heaving bosom, her eyes upon her plate.
+
+"My Lord Cardinal and his Duke may take themselves together to Hell ere
+I obey the summons that the one has sent me at the desire of the other.
+Here I stay to guard what is my own."
+
+"You are a fool," said Giuliana at length, "and a knave, too, for you
+insult me without cause."
+
+"Without cause? O, without cause, eh? By the Host! Yet you would not
+have me stay?"
+
+"I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey
+the Duke's magnificence," said she.
+
+"Gaoled?" quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of
+his passion. "Caged, perhaps--to die of hunger and thirst and exposure,
+like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last, because
+he dared to speak the truth. Gesu!" he groaned. "O, miserable me!" And
+he sank into a chair.
+
+But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving
+fiercely. "By the Eyes of God! They shall have cause to cage me. If I
+am to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns. I'll gore their
+vitals. O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you
+should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti."
+
+It was too much. I leapt to my feet.
+
+"Messer Fifanti," I blazed at him. "I'll not remain to hear such words
+addressed to this sweet lady."
+
+"Ah, yes," he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike
+me. "I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in
+embryo! You will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?" And he strode,
+mouthing, to the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the
+wall. "This is your remedy. Get you hence! Go! What passes here concerns
+you not. Go!" he roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific.
+
+I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly
+invited her to tell me how she would have me act.
+
+"Indeed, you had best go, Agostino," she answered sadly. "I shall bear
+his insults easier if there be no witness. Yes, go."
+
+"Since it is your wish, Madonna," I bowed to her, and very erect, very
+defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out. I
+heard the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon
+Busio, who was wringing his hand and looking very white. He ran to me.
+
+"He will murder her, Messer Agostino," moaned the old man. "He can be a
+devil in his anger."
+
+"He is a devil always, in anger and out of it," said I. "He needs an
+exorcist. It is a task that I should relish. I'd beat the devils out of
+him, Busio, and she would let me. Meanwhile, stay we here, and if she
+needs our help, it shall be hers."
+
+I dropped on to the carved settle that stood there, old Busio standing
+at my elbow, more tranquil now that there was help at hand for Madonna
+in case of need. And through the door came the sound of his storming,
+and presently the crash of more broken glassware, as once more he
+thumped the table. For well-high half an hour his fury lasted, and it
+was seldom that her voice was interposed. Once we heard her laugh, cold
+and cutting as a sword's edge, and I shivered at the sound, for it was
+not good to hear.
+
+At last the door was opened and he came forth. His face was inflamed,
+his eyes wild and blood-injected. He paused for a moment on the
+threshold, but I do not think that he noticed us at first. He looked
+back at her over his shoulder, still sitting at table, the outline of
+her white-gowned body sharply defined against the deep blue tapestry of
+the wall behind her.
+
+"You are warned," said he. "Do you heed the warning!" And he came
+forward.
+
+Perceiving me at last where I sat, he bared his broken teeth in a
+snarling smile. But it was to Busio that he spoke. "Have my mule saddled
+for me in an hour," he said, and passed on and up the stairs to make
+his preparations. It seemed, therefore, that she had conquered his
+suspicions.
+
+I went in to offer her comfort, for she was weeping and all shaken by
+that cruel encounter. But she waved me away.
+
+"Not now, Agostino. Not now," she implored me. "Leave me to myself, my
+friend."
+
+I had not been her friend had I not obeyed her without question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+
+It was late that afternoon when Astorre Fifanti set out. He addressed
+a few brief words to me, informing me that he should return within four
+days, betide what might, setting me tasks upon which I was meanwhile
+to work, and bidding me keep the house and be circumspect during his
+absence.
+
+From the window of my room I saw the doctor get astride his mule. He
+was girt with a big sword, but he still wore his long, absurd and shabby
+gown and his loose, ill-fitting shoes, so that it was very likely that
+the stirrup-leathers would engage his thoughts ere he had ridden far.
+
+I saw him dig his heels into the beast's sides and go ambling down the
+little avenue and out at the gate. In the road he drew rein, and stood
+in talk some moments with a lad who idled there, a lad whom he was wont
+to employ upon odd tasks about the garden and elsewhere.
+
+This, Madonna also saw, for she was watching his departure from the
+window of a room below. That she attached more importance to that little
+circumstance than did I, I was to learn much later.
+
+At last he pushed on, and I watched him as he dwindled down the long
+grey road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost
+to view--for all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle
+hope been realized.
+
+I supped alone that night with no other company than Busio's, who
+ministered to my needs.
+
+Madonna sent word that she would keep her chamber. When I had supped
+and after night had fallen I went upstairs to the library, and, shutting
+myself in, I attempted to read, lighted by the three beaks of the tall
+brass lamp that stood upon the table. Being plagued by moths, I drew the
+curtains close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with
+the opening lines of the [Title in Greek] of Aeschylus.
+
+But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at
+last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought,
+in doubt, and in conjecture. I became seriously introspective. I made an
+examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found
+that I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for
+me. Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.
+
+Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last
+talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me.
+That memory inspired me rightly. To-morrow--despite Messer Fifanti's
+orders--I would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess
+myself to Fra Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel. My mother's vows
+concerning me I saw in their true light. They were not binding upon me;
+indeed, I should be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against
+my inclinations. I must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had
+vowed or ever I was born, however much she might account that it would
+be no more than filial piety so to do.
+
+I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that
+mind of mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of
+Giuliana--Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still
+sought to conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering. Better
+a thousand times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it
+boldly. Thus should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning
+clear of all the horror that lay before me.
+
+That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed
+strength, I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of
+all--was the fault of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo
+they had so nurtured me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of
+the world that I was grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the
+Devil's mouth. The things to whose temptation usage would have rendered
+me in some degree immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored
+as had I.
+
+Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
+riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in
+which the Devil has the cunning to array it.
+
+And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of where I stood and in
+what perils were to play the hypocrite. Largely I knew; just as I knew
+that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight. And
+to-morrow I would go. That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile,
+turned down. And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of
+this hunger that was upon me.
+
+And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the
+door was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me.
+She detached from the black background of the passage, and the light of
+my three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there
+was a luminous nimbus all about her head. For a moment this gave colour
+to my fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness
+of my thoughts. The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was
+almost diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful.
+Only in the vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.
+
+I stared at her. "Giuliana!" I murmured.
+
+"Why do you sit so late?" she asked me, and closed the door as she
+spoke.
+
+"I have been thinking, Giuliana," I answered wearily, and I passed a
+hand over my brow to find it moist and clammy. "To-morrow I go hence."
+
+She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her
+breast. "You go hence?" she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.
+"Hence? Whither?"
+
+"Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end."
+
+She came slowly towards me. "And... and then?" she asked.
+
+"And then? I do not know. What God wills. But the scapulary is not for
+me. I am unworthy. I have no call. This I now know. And sooner than
+be such a priest as Messer Gambara--of whom there are too many in the
+Church to-day--I will find some other way of serving God."
+
+"Since... since when have you thought thus?"
+
+"Since this morning, when I kissed you," I answered fiercely.
+
+She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to
+me, inviting the clasp of mine. "But if this is so, why leave us?"
+
+"Because I am afraid," I answered. "Because... O God! Giuliana, do you
+not see?" And I sank my head into my hands.
+
+Steps shuffled along the corridor. I looked up sharply. She set a finger
+to her lips. There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us.
+
+"Madonna," he announced, "my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks
+for you."
+
+I started up as if I had been stung. So! At this hour! Then Messer
+Fifanti's suspicions did not entirely lack for grounds.
+
+Giuliana flashed me a glance ere she made answer.
+
+"You will tell my Lord Gambara that I have retired for the night and
+that... But stay!" She caught up a quill and dipped it in the ink-horn,
+drew paper to herself, and swiftly wrote three lines; then dusted it
+with sand, and proffered that brief epistle to the servant.
+
+"Give this to my lord."
+
+Busio took the note, bowed, and departed.
+
+After the door had closed a silence followed, in which I paced the room
+in long strides, aflame now with the all-consuming fire of jealousy.
+I do believe that Satan had set all the legions of hell to achieve my
+overthrow that night. Naught more had been needed to undo me than this
+spur of jealousy. It brought me now to her side. I stood over her,
+looking down at her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my
+glance with such a look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims.
+
+"Why dared he come?" I asked.
+
+"Perhaps... perhaps some affair connected with Astorre..." she faltered.
+
+I sneered. "That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to
+Parma."
+
+"If there was aught else, I am no party to it," she assured me.
+
+How could I do other than believe her? How could I gauge the turpitude
+of that beauty's mind--I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches
+women? How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that
+lad at the gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon
+the house, and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone? I
+knew it later. But not then.
+
+"Will you swear that it is as you say?" I asked her, white with passion.
+
+As I have said, I was standing over her and very close. Her answer now
+was suddenly to rise. Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms
+until she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly
+veiled, her lips a-pout.
+
+"Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I
+love you?" she asked me.
+
+For an instant we swayed together in that sweetly hideous embrace. I was
+as a man sapped of all strength by some portentous struggle. I trembled
+from head to foot. I cried out once--a despairing prayer for help,
+I think it was--and then I seemed to plunge headlong down through an
+immensity of space until my lips found hers. The ecstasy, the living
+fire, the anguish, and the torture of it have left their indelible scars
+upon my memory. Even as I write the cruelly sweet poignancy of that
+moment is with me again--though very hateful now.
+
+Thus I, blindly and recklessly, under the sway and thrall of that
+terrific and overpowering temptation. And then there leapt in my mind a
+glimmer of returning consciousness: a glimmer that grew rapidly to be
+a blazing light in which I saw revealed the hideousness of the thing I
+did. I tore myself away from her in that second of revulsion and hurled
+her from me, fiercely and violently, so that, staggering to the seat
+from which she had risen, she fell into it rather than sat down.
+
+And whilst, breathless with parted lips and galloping bosom, she
+observed me, something near akin to terror in her eyes, I stamped about
+that room and raved and heaped abuse and recriminations upon myself,
+ending by going down upon my knees to her, imploring her forgiveness for
+the thing I had done--believing like a fatuous fool that it was all my
+doing--and imploring her still more passionately to leave me and to go.
+
+She set a trembling hand upon my head; she took my chin in the other,
+and raised my face until she could look into it.
+
+"If it be your will--if it will bring you peace and happiness, I will
+leave you now and never see you more. But are you not deluded, my
+Agostino?"
+
+And then, as if her self-control gave way, she fell to weeping.
+
+"And what of me if you go? What of me wedded to that monster, to that
+cruel and inhuman pedant who tortures and insults me as you have seen?"
+
+"Beloved, will another wrong cure the wrong of that?" I pleaded. "O, if
+you love me, go--go, leave me. It is too late--too late!"
+
+I drew away from her touch, and crossed the room to fling myself upon
+the window-seat. For a space we sat apart thus, panting like wrestlers
+who have flung away from each other. At length--"Listen, Giuliana," I
+said more calmly. "Were I to heed you, were I to obey my own desires, I
+should bid you come away with me from this to-morrow."
+
+"If you but would!" she sighed. "You would be taking me out of hell."
+
+"Into another worse," I countered swiftly. "I should do you such a wrong
+as naught could ever right again."
+
+She looked at me for a spell in silence. Her back was to the light and
+her face in shadow, so that I could not read what passed there. Then,
+very slowly, like one utterly weary, she got to her feet.
+
+"I will do your will, beloved; but I do it not for the wrong that I
+should suffer--for that I should count no wrong--but for the wrong that
+I should be doing you."
+
+She paused as if for an answer. I had none for her. I raised my arms,
+then let them fall again, and bowed my head. I heard the gentle rustle
+of her robe, and I looked up to see her staggering towards the door, her
+arms in front of her like one who is blind. She reached it, pulled it
+open, and from the threshold gave me one last ineffable look of her
+great eyes, heavy now with tears. Then the door closed again, and I was
+alone.
+
+From my heart there rose a great surge of thankfulness. I fell upon my
+knees and prayed. For an hour at least I must have knelt there, seeking
+grace and strength; and comforted at last, my calm restored, I rose, and
+went to the window. I drew back the curtains, and leaned out to breathe
+the physical calm of that tepid September night.
+
+And presently out of the gloom a great grey shape came winging towards
+the window, the heavy pinions moving ponderously with their uncanny
+sough. It was an owl attracted by the light. Before that bird of evil
+omen, that harbinger of death, I drew back and crossed myself. I had a
+sight of its sphinx-like face and round, impassive eyes ere it circled
+to melt again into the darkness, startled by any sudden movement. I
+closed the window and left the room.
+
+Very softly I crept down the passage towards my chamber, leaving the
+light burning in the library, for it was not my habit to extinguish it,
+and I gave no thought to the lateness of the hour.
+
+Midway down the passage I halted. I was level with Giuliana's door, and
+from under it there came a slender blade of light. But it was not this
+that checked me. She was singing, Such a pitiful little heartbroken song
+it was:
+
+     "Amor mi muojo; mi muojo amore mio!"
+
+ran its last line.
+
+I leaned against the wall, and a sob broke from me. Then, in an instant,
+the passage was flooded with light, and in the open doorway Giuliana
+stood all white before me, her arms held out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+From the distance, drawing rapidly nearer and ringing sharply in the
+stillness of the night, came the clatter of a mule's hooves.
+
+But, though heard, it was scarcely heard consciously, and it certainly
+went unheeded until it was beneath the window and ceasing at the door.
+
+Giuliana's fingers locked themselves upon my arm in a grip of fear.
+
+"Who comes?" she asked, below her breath, fearfully. I sprang from the
+bed and crouched, listening, by the window, and so lost precious time.
+
+Out of the darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now and
+trembling.
+
+"It will be Astorre," she said, with conviction. "At this hour it can
+be none else. I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gate
+this afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him wherever
+he was lurking, did the need arise."
+
+"But how should the boy know...?" I began, when she interrupted me
+almost impatiently.
+
+"The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up. He waited for no more, but went at
+once to warn Astorre. He has been long in coming," she added in the tone
+of one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thing
+that is happening. And then, suddenly and very urgently, "Go, go--go
+quickly!" she bade me.
+
+As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:
+
+"Why does he not knock? For what does he wait?" Immediately, from
+the stairs, came a terrific answer to her question--the unmistakable,
+slip-slopping footstep of the doctor.
+
+I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered
+I could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful
+fact that he was in.
+
+I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and groping
+forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the
+very steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
+
+At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close it
+after me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of
+the light Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which way
+to turn. My first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt it
+were assuredly to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftly
+and stealthily as possible towards the library.
+
+I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
+sight of me before I had closed the door.
+
+I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting,
+and trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a
+glimpse of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
+
+I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
+haste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other.
+His face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone
+yellow. The fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound between
+a roar and a snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping down
+the passage.
+
+I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to seat myself at the table, a
+book before me, and feigning slumber, present the appearance of one who
+had been overcome by weariness at his labours. But now all thought
+of that was at an end. I had been seen, and that I fled was all too
+apparent. So that in every way I was betrayed.
+
+The thing I did, I did upon instinct rather than reason; and this again
+was not well done. I slammed the door, and turned the key, placing
+at least that poor barrier between myself and the man I had so deeply
+wronged, the man whom I had given the right to slay me. A second later
+the door shook as if a hurricane had smitten it. He had seized the
+handle, and he was pulling at it frenziedly with a maniacal strength.
+
+"Open!" he thundered, and fell to snarling and whimpering horribly.
+"Open!"
+
+Then, quite abruptly he became oddly calm. It was as if his rage grew
+coldly purposeful; and the next words he uttered acted upon me as a
+dagger-prod, and reawakened my mind from its momentary stupefaction.
+
+"Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my Lord
+Gambara?" quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
+
+My Lord Gambara! He mistook me for the Legate! In an instant I saw the
+reason of this. It was as Giuliana had conceived. The boy had run to
+warn him wherever he was--at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon the
+road to Parma. And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had
+gone to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate come
+forth again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was
+Gambara whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had the
+right to do.
+
+When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lain
+between us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom he
+expected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled before
+him.
+
+There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed.
+For no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme how
+I might profit by it. Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place if
+the thing could be contrived. If not in fact, at least in intent, the
+Cardinal-legate had certainly sinned. If he was not in my place now,
+it was through the too great good fortune that attended him. Besides,
+Gambara would be in better case to protect himself from the consequences
+and from Fifanti's anger.
+
+Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window. If
+I could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my own
+chamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at that
+door. Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, as
+he mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
+
+"You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough. You
+would plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you are
+gored by them."
+
+Then he laughed hideously. "This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a
+fool. He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit
+my Lord Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you that
+suspicious husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they
+remain."
+
+Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door was
+shaken.
+
+"Will you open, then, or must I break down the door! There is no barrier
+in the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you. I
+have the right to kill you by every law of God and man. Shall I forgo
+that right?" He laughed snarlingly.
+
+"Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have given
+you--and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!" he mocked.
+"That was the price, my lord, of my hospitality--which was to include
+my wife's harlotry. Three hundred ducats! Ha! ha! Three hundred thousand
+million years in Hell! That is the price, my lord--the price that you
+shall pay, for I present the reckoning and enforce it. You shall be
+shriven in iron--you and your wanton after you.
+
+"Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for having
+sent a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it? Shall
+I? Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledge
+inform me."
+
+I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomous
+mockery. But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open. I peered
+down into the darkness and hesitated. The wall was creeper-clad to the
+window's height; but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis would
+never bear me. I hesitated. Then I resolved to jump. It was but little
+more than some twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to daunt
+an active lad of my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below. It
+should have been done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitation
+was my ruin.
+
+Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, after
+all, his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like an
+infuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater than
+his usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
+
+Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at
+me, too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
+
+When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was
+overwhelming.
+
+"You!" he gasped, and then his voice mounting--"You dog!" he screamed.
+"So it was you! You!"
+
+He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with
+horrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise. "You!" he
+repeated. "Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the ways
+of St. Augustine--in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you
+postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night--with this!"
+And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down
+the livid blade.
+
+"I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!" And thereupon he leapt at me.
+
+I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden
+activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of
+Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
+
+He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He
+avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement
+that was still closed.
+
+And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the
+door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
+
+We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber between
+us, both of us breathing hard.
+
+Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; for
+it was plain that he meant to have my life. By a great ill-chance it
+happened that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as
+Giuliana's escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner
+where I had set it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti,
+never suspecting my quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand,
+did nothing to prevent my reaching it.
+
+Seeing me armed, he laughed. "Ho, ho! The saint-at-arms!" he mocked.
+"You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!" And he advanced
+upon me in long stealthy strides. The width of the table was between us,
+and he smote at me across it. I parried, and cut back at him, for being
+armed now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child.
+Little he knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thing
+which once learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make us
+slow.
+
+He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke. And now,
+I can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there was
+no intent. It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening.
+I had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what they
+have been taught.
+
+To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard of
+Marozzo's which is known as the iron girdle. I parried and on the stroke
+I lunged, and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank the
+half of my iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that the
+thing was possible.
+
+I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of his
+face become one of intense astonishment.
+
+He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from his
+one hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, still
+looking at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on to
+my rigidly held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons.
+For a moment he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mine
+and the table against which his weight was leaning. Then I withdrew the
+blade, and in the same movement flung the weapon from me. Before the
+sword had rattled to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heap
+beyond the table, so that I could see no more than the yellow, egg-like
+top of his bald head.
+
+Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity and
+a queer awe. Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I had
+done. It might be that I had killed Fifanti. It might be. And slowly,
+gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of its
+horrid meaning.
+
+Then from the passage came a stifled scream, and Giuliana staggered
+forward, one hand holding flimsy draperies to her heaving bosom, the
+other at her mouth, which had grown hideously loose and uncontrolled.
+Her glowing copper hair, all unbound, fell about her shoulders like a
+mantle.
+
+Behind her with ashen face and trembling limbs came old Busio. He
+was groaning and ringing his hands. Thus I saw the pair of them creep
+forward to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword had
+gone through him.
+
+But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them--the faithful servant and
+the unfaithful wife. All that remained, huddled there at the foot of the
+table, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments.
+
+It was Giuliana who gave me the information. With a courage that was
+almost stupendous she looked down into his face, then up into mine,
+which I doubt not was as livid.
+
+"You have killed him," she whispered. "He is dead."
+
+He was dead and I had killed him! My lips moved.
+
+"He would have killed me," I answered in a strangled voice, and knew
+that what I said was a sort of lie to cloak the foulness of my deed.
+
+Old Busio uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees
+beside the master he had served so long--the master who would never more
+need servant in this world.
+
+It was upon the wings of that pitiful cry that the full understanding
+of the thing I had done was borne in upon my soul. I bowed my head, and
+took my face in my hands. I saw myself in that moment for what I was. I
+accounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement,
+surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency could
+find no pardon.
+
+I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities;
+all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in this
+hour's work. And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant,
+who indeed had been my victim--whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
+
+Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing and
+self-contempt. And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror of
+it all was full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft,
+quivering voice murmured urgently in my ear:
+
+"Agostino, we must go; we must go."
+
+I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which she
+shrank in fear.
+
+"We?" I snarled at her. "We?" I repeated still more fiercely, and drove
+her back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
+
+O, I should have imagined--had I had time in which to imagine
+anything--that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit of
+infamy. But it seems that one more downward step remained me; and that
+step I took. Not by act, nor yet by speech, but just by thought.
+
+For without the manliness to take the whole blame of this great crime
+upon myself, I must in my soul and mind fling the burden of it upon her.
+Like Adam of old, I blamed the woman, and charged her in my thoughts
+with having tempted me. Charging her thus, I loathed her as the cause of
+all this sin that had engulfed me; loathed her in that moment as a thing
+unclean and hideous; loathed her with a completeness of loathing such as
+I had never experienced before for any fellow-creature.
+
+Instead of beholding in her one whom I had dragged with me into my pit
+of sin and whom it was incumbent upon my manhood thenceforth to shelter
+and protect from the consequences of my own iniquity, I attributed to
+her the blame of all that had befallen.
+
+To-day I know that in so doing I did no more than justice. But it was
+not justly done. I had then no such knowledge as I have to-day by which
+to correct my judgment. The worst I had the right to think of her in
+that hour was that her guilt was something less than mine. In thinking
+otherwise was it that I took that last step to the very bottom of the
+hell that I had myself created for myself that night.
+
+The rest was as nothing by comparison. I have said that it was not by
+act or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it was
+by both. First, in that fiercely echoed "We?" that I hurled at her to
+strike her from me; then in my precipitate flight alone.
+
+How I stumbled from that room I scarcely know. The events of the time
+that followed immediately upon Fifanti's death are all blurred as the
+impressions of a sick man's dream.
+
+I dimly remember that as she backed away from me until her shoulders
+touched the wall, that as she stood so, all white and lovely as any
+snare that Satan ever devised for man's ruin, staring at me with mutely
+pleading eyes, I staggered forward, avoiding the sight of that dreadful
+huddle on the floor, over which Busio was weeping foolishly.
+
+As I stepped a sudden moisture struck my stockinged feet. Its nature
+I knew by instinct upon the instant, and filled by it with a sudden
+unreasoning terror, I dashed with a loud cry from the room.
+
+Along the passage and down the dark stairs I plunged until I reached
+the door of the house. It stood open and I went heedlessly forth. From
+overhead I heard Giuliana calling me in a voice that held a note of
+despair. But I never checked in my headlong career.
+
+Fifanti's mule, I have since reflected, was tethered near the steps. I
+saw the beast, but it conveyed no meaning to my mind, which I think was
+numbed. I sped past it and on, through the gate, round the road by the
+Po, under the walls of the city, and so away into the open country.
+
+Without cap, without doublet, without shoes, just in my trunks and shirt
+and hose, as I was, I ran, heading by instinct for home as heads the
+animal that has been overtaken by danger whilst abroad. Never since
+Phidippides, the Athenian courier, do I believe that any man had run as
+desperately and doggedly as I ran that night.
+
+By dawn, having in some three hours put twenty miles or so between
+myself and Piacenza, I staggered exhausted and with cut and bleeding
+feet through the open door of a peasant's house.
+
+The family, sat at breakfast in the stone-flagged room into which I
+stumbled. I halted under their astonished eyes.
+
+"I am the Lord of Mondolfo," I panted hoarsely, "and I need a beast to
+carry me home."
+
+The head of that considerable family, a grizzled, suntanned peasant,
+rose from his seat and pondered my condition with a glance that was
+laden with mistrust.
+
+"The Lord of Mondolfo--you, thus?" quoth he. "Now, by Bacchus, I am the
+Pope of Rome!"
+
+But his wife, more tender-hearted, saw in my disorder cause for pity
+rather than irony.
+
+"Poor lad!" she murmured, as I staggered and fell into a chair, unable
+longer to retain my feet. She rose immediately, and came hurrying
+towards me with a basin of goat's milk. The draught refreshed my body as
+her gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul. Seated there, her
+stout arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherly
+breast, I was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state by
+the sweet touch of sympathy, for which may God reward her.
+
+I rested in that place awhile. Three hours I slept upon a litter of
+straw in an outhouse; whereupon, strengthened by my repose, I renewed my
+claim to be the Lord of Mondolfo and my demand for a horse to carry me
+to my fortress.
+
+Still doubting me too much to trust me alone with any beast of his, the
+peasant nevertheless fetched out a couple of mules and set out with me
+for Mondolfo.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HOME-COMING
+
+
+It was still early morning when we came into the town of Mondolfo, my
+peasant escort and I.
+
+The day being Sunday there was little stir in the town at such an hour,
+and it presented a very different appearance from that which it had worn
+when last I had seen it. But the difference lay not only in the absence
+of bustle and the few folk abroad now as compared with that market-day
+on which, departing, I had ridden through it. I viewed the place to-day
+with eyes that were able to draw comparisons, and after the wide streets
+and imposing buildings of Piacenza, I found my little township mean and
+rustic.
+
+We passed the Duomo, consecrated to Our Lady of Mondolfo. Its
+portals stood wide, and in the opening swung a heavy crimson curtain,
+embroidered with a huge golden cross which was bellying outward like an
+enormous gonfalon. On the steps a few crippled beggars whined, and a few
+faithful took their way to early Mass.
+
+On, up the steep, ill-paved street we climbed to the mighty grey citadel
+looming on the hill's crest, like a gigantic guardian brooding over the
+city of his trust. We crossed the drawbridge unchallenged, passed under
+the tunnel of the gateway, and so came into the vast, untenanted bailey
+of the fortress.
+
+I looked about me, beat my hands together, and raised my voice to shout
+
+"Ola! Ola!"
+
+In answer to my call the door of the guardhouse opened presently, and
+a man looked out. He frowned at first; then his brows went up and his
+mouth fell open.
+
+"It is the Madonnino!" he shouted over his shoulder, and hurried forward
+to take my reins, uttering words of respectful welcome, which seemed to
+relieve the fears of my peasant, who had never quite believed me what I
+proclaimed myself.
+
+There was a stir in the guardhouse, and two or three men of the absurd
+garrison my mother kept there shuffled in the doorway, whilst a burly
+fellow in leather with a sword girt on him thrust his way through
+and hurried forward, limping slightly. In the dark, lowering face
+I recognized my old friend Rinolfo, and I marvelled to see him thus
+accoutred.
+
+He halted before me, and gave me a stiff and unfriendly salute; then he
+bade the man-at-arms to hold my stirrup.
+
+"What is your authority here, Rinolfo?" I asked him shortly.
+
+I am the castellan," he informed me.
+
+"The castellan? But what of Messer Giorgio?"
+
+"He died a month ago."
+
+"And who gave you this authority?"
+
+"Madonna the Countess, in some recompense for the hurt you did me," he
+replied, thrusting forward his lame leg.
+
+His tone was surly and hostile; but it provoked no resentment in me
+now. I deserved his unfriendliness. I had crippled him. At the moment I
+forgot the provocation I had received--forgot that since he had raised
+his hand to his lord, it would have been no great harshness to have
+hanged him. I saw in him but another instance of my wickedness, another
+sufferer at my hands; and I hung my head under the rebuke implicit in
+his surly tone and glance.
+
+"I had not thought, Rinolfo, to do you an abiding hurt," said I, and
+here checked, bethinking me that I lied; for had I not expressed regret
+that I had not broken his neck?
+
+I got down slowly and painfully, for my limbs were stiff and my feet
+very sore. He smiled darkly at my words and my sudden faltering; but I
+affected not to see.
+
+"Where is Madonna?" I asked.
+
+"She will have returned by now from chapel," he answered.
+
+I turned to the man-at-arms. "You will announce me," I bade him. "And
+you, Rinolfo, see to these beasts and to this good fellow here. Let him
+have wine and food and what he needs. I will see him again ere he sets
+forth."
+
+Rinolfo muttered that all should be done as I ordered, and I signed to
+the man-at-arms to lead the way.
+
+We went up the steps and into the cool of the great hall. There the
+soldier, whose every feeling had been outraged no doubt by Rinolfo's
+attitude towards his lord, ventured to express his sympathy and
+indignation.
+
+"Rinolfo is a black beast, Madonnino," he muttered.
+
+"We are all black beasts, Eugenio," I answered heavily, and so startled
+him by words and tone that he ventured upon no further speech, but led
+me straight to my mother's private dining-room, opened the door and
+calmly announced me.
+
+"Madonna, here is my Lord Agostino."
+
+I heard the gasp she uttered before I caught sight of her. She was
+seated at the table's head in her great wooden chair, and Fra Gervasio
+was pacing the rush-strewn floor in talk with her, his hands behind his
+back, his head thrust forward.
+
+At the announcement he straightened suddenly and wheeled round to face
+me, inquiry in his glance. My mother, too, half rose, and remained
+so, staring at me, her amazement at seeing me increased by the strange
+appearance I presented.
+
+Eugenio closed the door and departed, leaving me standing there, just
+within it; and for a moment no word was spoken.
+
+The cheerless, familiar room, looking more cheerless than it had done
+of old, with its high-set windows and ghastly Crucifix, affected me in
+a singular manner. In this room I had known a sort of peace--the peace
+that is peculiarly childhood's own, whatever the troubles that may haunt
+it. I came into it now with hell in my soul, sin-blackened before God
+and man, a fugitive in quest of sanctuary.
+
+A knot rose in my throat and paralysed awhile my speech. Then with a
+sudden sob, I sprang forward and hobbled to her upon my wounded feet. I
+flung myself down upon my knees, buried my head in her lap, and all that
+I could cry was:
+
+"Mother! Mother!"
+
+Whether perceiving my disorder, my distraught and suffering condition,
+what remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry
+acting like a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of
+piety had long since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs
+that had long since been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond
+between us, her tone was more kindly and gentle than I had ever known
+it.
+
+"Agostino, my child! Why are you here?" And her wax-like fingers very
+gently touched my head. "Why are you here--and thus? What has happened
+to you?"
+
+"Me miserable!" I groaned.
+
+"What is it?" she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.
+
+At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.
+
+"Mother, I am a sinner," I faltered miserably.
+
+I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and
+contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some
+shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his
+voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.
+
+"Sinners are we all, Agostino. But repentance purges sin. Do not abandon
+yourself to despair, my son."
+
+But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.
+
+"What is it? Wretched boy, what have you done?" And the cold repugnance
+in her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.
+
+"O God help me! God help me!" I groaned miserably.
+
+Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that
+was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"Dear Agostino," he murmured, "would you find it easier to tell me
+first? Will you confess to me, my son? Will you let me lift this burden
+from your soul?"
+
+Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face.
+I caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away.
+"If there were more priests like you," I cried, "there would be fewer
+sinners like me."
+
+A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a
+gleam of pale sunshine from an over-clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle,
+soothing words of the Divine Mercy.
+
+I staggered to my bruised feet. "I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio," I
+said, "and afterwards we will tell my mother."
+
+She looked as she would make demur. But Fra Gervasio checked any such
+intent.
+
+"It is best so, Madonna," he said gravely. "His most urgent need is the
+consolation that the Church alone can give."
+
+He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth. We went to his
+modest chamber, with its waxed floor, the hard, narrow pallet upon
+which he slept, the blue and gold image of the Virgin, and the little
+writing-pulpit upon which lay open a manuscript he was illuminating,
+for he was very skilled in that art which already was falling into
+desuetude.
+
+At this pulpit, by the window, he took his seat, and signed to me to
+kneel. I recited the Confiteor. Thereafter, with my face buried in my
+hands, my soul writhing in an agony of penitence and shame, I poured out
+the hideous tale of the evil I had wrought.
+
+Rarely did he speak while I was at that recitation. Save when I halted
+or hesitated he would interject a word of pity and of comfort that fell
+like a blessed balsam upon my spiritual wounds and gave me strength to
+pursue my awful story.
+
+When I had done and he knew me to the full for the murderer and
+adulterer that I was, there fell a long pause, during which I waited as
+a felon awaits sentence. But it did not come. Instead, he set himself
+to examine more closely the thing I had told him. He probed it with
+a question here and a question there, and all of a shrewdness that
+revealed the extent of his knowledge of humanity, and the infinite
+compassion and gentleness that must be the inevitable fruits of such sad
+knowledge.
+
+He caused me to go back to the very day of my arrival at Fifanti's; and
+thence, step by step, he led me again over the road that in the past
+four months I had trodden, until he had traced the evil to its very
+source, and could see the tiny spring that had formed the brook which,
+gathering volume as it went, had swollen at last into a raging torrent
+that had laid waste its narrow confines.
+
+"Who that knows all that goes to the making of a sin shall dare to
+condemn a sinner?" he cried at last, so that I looked up at him,
+startled, and penetrated by a ray of hope and comfort. He returned my
+glance with one of infinite pity.
+
+"It is the woman here upon whom must fall the greater blame," said he.
+
+But at that I cried out in hot remonstrance, adding that I had yet
+another vileness to confess--for it was now that for the first time I
+realized it. And I related to him how last night I had repudiated her,
+cast her off and fled, leaving her to bear the punishment alone.
+
+Of my conduct in that he withheld his criticism. "The sin is hers," he
+repeated. "She was a wife, and the adultery is hers. More, she was the
+seducer. It was she who debauched your mind with lascivious readings,
+and tore away the foundations of virtue from your soul. If in the
+cataclysm that followed she was crushed and smothered, it is no more
+than she had incurred."
+
+I still protested that this view was all too lenient to me, that it
+sprang of his love for me, that it was not just. Thereupon he began to
+make clear to me many things that may have been clear to you worldly
+ones who have read my scrupulous and exact confessions, but which at the
+time were still all wrapped in obscurity for me.
+
+It was as if he held up a mirror--an intelligent and informing
+mirror--in which my deeds were reflected by the light of his own deep
+knowledge. He showed me the gradual seduction to which I had been
+subjected; he showed me Giuliana as she really was, as she must be from
+what I had told him; he reminded me that she was older by ten years than
+I, and greatly skilled in men and worldliness; that where I had gone
+blindly, never seeing what was the inevitable goal and end of the road
+I trod, she had consciously been leading me thither, knowing full well
+what the end must be, and desiring it.
+
+As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been
+done in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the
+poor man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame.
+Largely had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his
+heart. A good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which
+he knew to be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him
+to trap and slay his enemy.
+
+And the greatest blame of all he attached to that Messer Arcolano who
+had recommended Fifanti to my mother as a tutor for me, knowing full
+well--as he must have known--what manner of house the doctor kept
+and what manner of wanton was Giuliana. Arcolano had sought to serve
+Fifanti's interests in pretending to serve mine and my mother's; and my
+mother should be enlightened that at last she might know that evil man
+for what he really was.
+
+"But all this," he concluded, "does not mean, Agostino, that you are
+to regard yourself as other than a great sinner. You have sinned
+monstrously, even when all these extenuations are considered."
+
+"I know, I know!" I groaned.
+
+"But beyond forgiveness no man has ever sinned, nor have you now. So
+that your repentance is deep and real, and when by some penance that
+I shall impose you shall have cleansed yourself of all this mire that
+clings to your poor soul, you shall have absolution from me."
+
+"Impose your penance," I cried eagerly. "There is none I will not
+undertake, to purchase pardon and some little peace of mind.
+
+"I will consider it," he answered gravely. "And now let us seek your
+mother. She must be told, for a great deals hangs upon this, Agostino.
+The career to which you were destined is no longer for you, my son."
+
+My spirit quailed under those last words; and yet I felt an immense
+relief at the same time, as if some overwhelming burden had been lifted
+from me.
+
+"I am indeed unworthy," I said.
+
+"It is not your unworthiness that I am considering, my son, but your
+nature. The world calls you over-strongly. It is not for nothing that
+you are the child of Giovanni d'Anguissola. His blood runs thick in your
+veins, and it is very human blood. For such as you there is no hope
+in the cloister. Your mother must be made to realize it, and she must
+abandon her dreams concerning you. It will wound her very sorely. But
+better that than..." He shrugged and rose. "Come, Agostino."
+
+And I rose, too, immensely comforted and soothed already, for all that
+I was yet very far from ease or peace of mind. Outside his room he set a
+hand upon my arm.
+
+"Wait," he said, "we have ministered in some degree to your poor spirit.
+Let us take thought for the body, too. You need garments and other
+things. Come with me."
+
+He led me up to my own little chamber, took fresh raiment for me from
+a press, called Lorenza and bade her bring bread and wine, vinegar and
+warm water.
+
+In a very weak dilution of the latter he bade me bathe my lacerated
+feet, and then he found fine strips of linen in which to bind them ere I
+drew fresh hose and shoes. And meanwhile munching my bread and salt and
+taking great draughts of the pure if somewhat sour wine, my mental peace
+was increased by the refreshment of my body.
+
+At last I stood up more myself than I had been in these last twelve
+awful hours--for it was just noon, and into twelve hours had been packed
+the events that well might have filled a lifetime.
+
+He put an arm about my shoulder, fondly as a father might have done, and
+so led me below again and into my mother's presence.
+
+We found her kneeling before the Crucifix, telling her beads; and we
+stood waiting a few moments in silence until with a sigh and a rustle of
+her stiff black dress she rose gently and turned to face us.
+
+My heart thudded violently in that moment, as I looked into that pale
+face of sorrow. Then Fra Gervasio began to speak very gently and softly.
+
+"Your son, Madonna, has been lured into sin by a wanton woman," he
+began, and there she interrupted him with a sudden and very piteous cry.
+
+"Not that! Ah, not that!" she exclaimed, putting out hands gropingly
+before her.
+
+"That and more, Madonna," he answered gravely. "Be brave to hear the
+rest. It is a very piteous story. But the founts of Divine Mercy are
+inexhaustible, and Agostino shall drink therefrom when by penitence he
+shall have cleansed his lips."
+
+Very erect she stood there, silent and ghostly, her face looking
+diaphanous by contrast with the black draperies that enshrouded her,
+whilst her eyes were great pools of sorrow. Poor, poor mother! It is the
+last recollection I have of her; for after that day we never met again,
+and I would give ten years to purgatory if I might recall the last words
+that passed between us.
+
+As briefly as possible and ever thrusting into the foreground the
+immensity of the snare that had been spread for me and the temptation
+that had enmeshed me, Gervasio told her the story of my sin.
+
+She heard him through in that immovable attitude, one hand pressed to
+her heart, her poor pale lips moving now and again, but no sound coming
+from them, her face a white mask of pain and horror.
+
+When he had done, so wrought upon was I by the sorrow of that
+countenance that I went forward again to fling myself upon my knees
+before her.
+
+"Mother, forgive!" I pleaded. And getting no answer I put up my hands to
+take hers. "Mother!" I cried, and the tears were streaming down my face.
+
+But she recoiled before me.
+
+"Are you my child?" she asked in a voice of horror. "Are you the thing
+that has grown out of that little child I vowed to chastity and to
+God? Then has my sin overtaken me--the sin of bearing a son to Giovanni
+d'Anguissola, that enemy of God!"
+
+"Ah, mother, mother!" I cried again, thinking perhaps by that
+all-powerful word to move her yet to pity and to gentleness.
+
+"Madonna," cried Gervasio, "be merciful if you would look for mercy."
+
+"He has falsified my vows," she answered stonily. "He was my votive
+offering for the life of his impious father. I am punished for the
+unworthiness of my offering and the unworthiness of the cause in which I
+offered it. Accursed is the fruit of my womb!" She moaned, and sank her
+head upon her breast.
+
+"I will atone!" I cried, overwhelmed to see her so distraught.
+
+She wrung her pale hands.
+
+"Atone!" she cried, and her voice trembled. "Go then, and atone. But
+never let me see you more; never let me be reminded of the sinner to
+whom I have given life. Go! Begone!" And she raised a hand in tragical
+dismissal.
+
+I shrank back, and came slowly to my feet. And then Gervasio spoke, and
+his voice boomed and thundered with righteous indignation.
+
+"Madonna, this is inhuman!" he denounced. "Shall you dare to hope for
+mercy being yourself unmerciful?"
+
+"I shall pray for strength to forgive him; but the sight of him might
+tempt me back with the memory of the thing that he has done," she
+answered, and she had returned to that cold and terrible reserve of
+hers.
+
+And then things that Fra Gervasio had repressed for years welled up in a
+mighty flood. "He is your son, and he is as you have made him."
+
+"As I have made him?" quoth she, and her glance challenged the friar.
+
+"By what right did you make of him a votive offering? By what right
+did you seek to consecrate a child unborn to a claustral life without
+thought of his character, without reck of the desires that should be
+his? By what right did you make yourself the arbiter of the future of a
+man unborn?"
+
+"By what right?" quoth she. "Are you a priest, and do you ask me by what
+right I vowed him to the service of God?"
+
+"And is there, think you, no way of serving God but in the sterility of
+the cloister?" he demanded. "Why, since no man is born to damnation,
+and since by your reasoning the world must mean damnation, then all men
+should be encloistered, and soon, thus, there would be an end to man.
+You are too arrogant, Madonna, when you presume to judge what pleases
+God. Beware lest you fall into the sin of the Pharisee, for often have I
+seen you stand in danger of it."
+
+She swayed as if her strength were failing her, and again her pale lips
+moved.
+
+"Enough, Fra Gervasio! I will go," I cried.
+
+"Nay, it is not yet enough," he answered, and strode down the room until
+he stood between her and me. "He is what you have made him," he repeated
+in denunciation. "Had you studied his nature and his inclinations, had
+you left them free to develop along the way that God intended, you would
+have seen whether or not the cloister called him; and then would have
+been the time to have taken a resolve. But you thought to change his
+nature by repressing it; and you never saw that if he was not such as
+you would have him be, then most surely would you doom him to damnation
+by making an evil priest of him.
+
+"In your Pharisaic arrogance, Madonna, you sought to superimpose your
+will to God's will concerning him--you confounded God's will with your
+own. And so his sins recoil upon you as much as upon any. Therefore,
+Madonna, do I bid you beware. Take a humbler view if you would be
+acceptable in the Divine sight. Learn to forgive, for I say to you
+to-day that you stand as greatly in need of forgiveness for the thing
+that Agostino has done, as does Agostino himself."
+
+He paused at last, and stood trembling before her, his eyes aflame, his
+high cheek-bones faintly tinted. And she measured him very calmly and
+coldly with her sombre eyes.
+
+"Are you a priest?" she asked with steady scorn. "Are you indeed a
+priest?" And then her invective was loosened, and her voice shrilled and
+mounted as her anger swayed her. "What a snake have I harboured here!"
+she cried. "Blasphemer! You show me clearly whence came the impiety and
+ungodliness of Giovanni d'Anguissola. It had the same source as your
+own. It was suckled at your mother's breast."
+
+A sob shook him. "My mother is dead, Madonna!" he rebuked her.
+
+"She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what
+a power for sin she has brought forth. Go, pitiful friar. Go, both of
+you. You are very choicely mated. Begone from Mondolfo, and never let me
+see either of you more."
+
+She staggered to her great chair and sank into it, whilst we stood
+there, mute, regarding her. For myself, it was with difficulty that I
+repressed the burning things that rose to my lips. Had I given free rein
+to my tongue, I had made of it a whip of scorpions. And my anger sprang
+not from the things she said to me, but from what she said to that
+saintly man who held out a hand to help me out of the morass of sin in
+which I was being sunk. That he, that sweet and charitable follower of
+his Master, should be abused by her, should be dubbed blasphemer
+and have the cherished memory of his mother defiled by her pietistic
+utterances, was something that inflamed me horribly.
+
+But he set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"Come, Agostino," he said very gently. He was calm once more. "We will
+go, as we are bidden, you and I."
+
+And then, out of the sweetness of his nature, he forged all unwittingly
+the very iron that should penetrate most surely into her soul.
+
+"Forgive her, my son. Forgive her as you need forgiveness. She does not
+understand the thing she does. Come, we will pray for her, that God in
+His infinite mercy may teach her humility and true knowledge of Him."
+
+I saw her start as if she had been stung.
+
+"Blasphemer, begone!" she cried again; and her voice was hoarse with
+suppressed anger.
+
+And then the door was suddenly flung open, and Rinolfo clanked in, very
+martial and important, his hand thrusting up his sword behind him.
+
+"Madonna," he announced, "the Captain of Justice from Piacenza is here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+
+There was a moment's silence after Rinolfo had flung that announcement.
+
+"The Captain of Justice?" quoth my mother at length, her voice startled.
+"What does he seek?"
+
+"The person of my Lord Agostino d'Anguissola," said Rinolfo steadily.
+
+She sighed very heavily. "A felon's end!" she murmured, and turned to
+me. "If thus you may expiate your sins," she said, speaking more gently,
+"let the will of Heaven be done. Admit the captain, Ser Rinolfo."
+
+He bowed, and turned sharply to depart.
+
+"Stay!" I cried, and rooted him there by the imperative note of my
+command.
+
+Fra Gervasio was more than right when he said that mine was not a nature
+for the cloister. In that moment I might have realized it to the full by
+the readiness with which the thought of battle occurred to me, and more
+by the anticipatory glow that warmed me at the very thought of it. I was
+the very son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.
+
+"What force attends the captain?" I inquired.
+
+"He has six mounted men with him," replied Rinolfo. "In that case," I
+answered, "you will bid him begone in my name."
+
+"And if he should not go?" was Rinolfo's impudent question.
+
+"You will tell him that I will drive him hence--him and his braves. We
+keep a garrison of a score of men at least--sufficient to compel him to
+depart."
+
+"He will return again with more," said Rinolfo.
+
+"Does that concern you?" I snapped. "Let him return with what he
+pleases. To-day I enrol more forces from the countryside, take up the
+bridge and mount our cannon. This is my lair and fortress, and I'll
+defend it and myself as becomes my name and blood. For I am the lord and
+master here, and the Lord of Mondolfo is not to be dragged away thus at
+the heels of a Captain of Justice. You have my orders, obey them. About
+it, sir."
+
+Circumstances had shown me the way that I must take, and the folly of
+going forth a fugitive outcast at my mother's bidding. I was Lord of
+Mondolfo, as I had said, and they should know and feel it from this
+hour--all of them, not excepting my mother.
+
+But I reckoned without the hatred Rinolfo bore me. Instead of the prompt
+obedience that I had looked for, he had turned again to my mother.
+
+"Is it your wish, Madonna?" he inquired.
+
+"It is my wish that counts, you knave," I thundered and advanced upon
+him.
+
+But he fronted me intrepidly. "I hold my office from my Lady the
+Countess. I obey none other here."
+
+"Body of God! Do you defy me?" I cried. "Am I Lord of Mondolfo, or am
+I a lackey in my own house? You'ld best obey me ere I break you, Ser
+Rinolfo. We shall see whether the men will take my orders," I added
+confidently.
+
+The faintest smile illumined his dark face. "The men will not stir a
+finger at the bidding of any but Madonna the Countess and myself," he
+answered hardily.
+
+It was by an effort that I refrained from striking him. And then my
+mother spoke again.
+
+"It is as Ser Rinolfo says," she informed me. "So cease this futile
+resistance, sir son, and accept the expiation that is offered you."
+
+I looked at her, she avoiding my glance.
+
+"Madonna, I cannot think that it is so," said I. "These men have known
+me since I was a little lad. Many of them have followed the fortunes of
+my father. They'll never turn their backs upon his son in the hour of
+his need. They are not all so inhuman as my mother."
+
+"You mistake, sir," said Rinolfo. "Of the men you knew but one or two
+remain. Most of our present force has been enrolled by me in the past
+month."
+
+This was defeat, utter and pitiful. His tone was too confident, he was
+too sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if
+I made appeal to his knavish followers. My arms fell to my sides, and I
+looked at Gervasio. His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of
+sorrow as they rested on me.
+
+"It is true, Agostino," he said.
+
+And as he spoke, Rinolfo limped out of the room to fetch the Captain of
+Justice, as my mother had bidden him; and his lips smiled cruelly.
+
+"Madam mother," I said bitterly, "you do a monstrous thing. You usurp
+the power that is mine, and you deliver me--me, your son--to the
+gallows. I hope that, hereafter, when you come to realize to the full
+your deed, you will be able to give your conscience peace."
+
+"My first duty is to God," she answered; and to that pitiable answer
+there was nothing to be rejoined.
+
+So I turned my shoulder to her and stood waiting, Fra Gervasio beside
+me, clenching his hands in his impotence and mute despair. And then an
+approaching clank of mail heralded the coming of the captain.
+
+Rinolfo held the door, and Cosimo d'Anguissola entered with a firm,
+proud tread, two of his men, following at his heels.
+
+He wore a buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of
+mail; his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear
+was a steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet. Thigh-boots
+encased his legs; sword and dagger hung in the silver carriages at his
+belt; his handsome, aquiline face was very solemn.
+
+He bowed profoundly to my mother, who rose to respond, and then he
+flashed me one swift glance of his piercing eyes.
+
+"I deplore my business here," he announced shortly. "No doubt it will be
+known to you already." And he looked at me again, allowing his eyes to
+linger on my face.
+
+"I am ready, sir," I said.
+
+"Then we had best be going, for I understand that none could be less
+welcome here than I. Yet in this, Madonna, let me assure you that there
+is nothing personal to myself. I am the slave of my office. I do but
+perform it."
+
+"So much protesting where no doubt has been expressed," said Fra
+Gervasio, "in itself casts a doubt upon your good faith. Are you not
+Cosimo d'Anguissola--my lord's cousin and heir?"
+
+"I am," said he, "yet that has no part in this, sir friar."
+
+"Then let it have part. Let it have the part it should have. Will you
+bear one of your own name and blood to the gallows? What will men say of
+that when they perceive your profit in the deed?"
+
+Cosimo looked him boldly between the eyes, his hawk-face very white.
+
+"Sir priest, I know not by what right you address me so. But you do
+me wrong. I am the Podesta of Piacenza bound by an oath that it would
+dishonour me to break; and break it I must or else fulfil my duty here.
+Enough!" he added, in his haughty, peremptory fashion. "Ser Agostino, I
+await your pleasure."
+
+"I will appeal to Rome," cried Fra Gervasio, now beside himself with
+grief.
+
+Cosimo smiled darkly, pityingly. "It is to be feared that Rome will turn
+a deaf ear to appeals on behalf of the son of Giovanni d'Anguissola."
+
+And with that he motioned me to precede him. Silently I pressed Fra
+Gervasio's hand, and on that departed without so much as another look at
+my mother, who sat there a silent witness of a scene which she approved.
+
+The men-at-arms fell into step, one on either side of me, and so we
+passed out into the courtyard, where Cosimo's other men were waiting,
+and where was gathered the entire family of the castle--a gaping, rather
+frightened little crowd.
+
+They brought forth a mule for me, and I mounted. Then suddenly there was
+Fra Gervasio at my side again.
+
+"I, too, am going hence," he said. "Be of good courage, Agostino. There
+is no effort I will not make on your behalf." In a broken voice he added
+his farewells ere he stood back at the captain's peremptory bidding. The
+little troop closed round me, and thus, within a couple of hours of my
+coming, I departed again from Mondolfo, surrendered to the hangman
+by the pious hands of my mother, who on her knees, no doubt, would be
+thanking God for having afforded her the grace to act in so righteous a
+manner.
+
+Once only did my cousin address me, and that was soon after we had left
+the town behind us. He motioned the men away, and rode to my side. Then
+he looked at me with mocking, hating eyes.
+
+"You had done better to have continued in your saint's trade than have
+become so very magnificent a sinner," said he.
+
+I did not answer him, and he rode on beside me in silence some little
+way.
+
+"Ah, well," he sighed at last. "Your course has been a brief one, but
+very eventful. And who would have suspected so very fierce a wolf under
+so sheepish an outside? Body of God! You fooled us all, you and that
+white-faced trull."
+
+He said it through his teeth with such a concentration of rage in his
+tones that it was easy to guess where the sore rankled.
+
+I looked at him gravely. "Does it become you, sir, do you think, to gird
+at one who is your prisoner?"
+
+"And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?" he flashed back
+fiercely. "Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool
+Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have
+been the only one excluded from her favours?"
+
+"You lie, you dog!" I blazed at him, so fiercely that the men turned in
+their saddles. He paled, and half raised the gauntleted hand in which he
+carried his whip. But he controlled himself, and barked an order to his
+followers:
+
+"Ride on, there!"
+
+When they had drawn off a little, and we were alone again, "I do not
+lie, sir," he said. "It is a practice which I leave to shavelings of all
+degrees."
+
+"If you say that she took aught from you, then you lie," I repeated.
+
+He considered me steadily. "Fool!" he said at last. "Whence else
+came her jewels and fine clothes? From Fifanti, do you think--that
+impecunious pedant? Or perhaps you imagine that it was from Gambara?
+In time that grasping prelate might have made the Duke pay. But pay,
+himself? By the Blood of God! he was never known to pay for anything.
+
+"Or, yet again, do you suppose her finery was afforded her by
+Caro?--Messer Annibale Caro--who is so much in debt that he is never
+like to return to Piacenza, unless some dolt of a patron rewards him for
+his poetaster's labours.
+
+"No, no, my shaveling. It was I who paid--I who was the fool. God! I
+more than suspected the others. But you. You saint... You!"
+
+He flung up his head, and laughed bitterly and unpleasantly. "Ah,
+well!" he ended, "You are to pay, though in different kind. It is in the
+family, you see." And abruptly raising his voice he shouted to the men
+to wait.
+
+Thereafter he rode ahead, alone and gloomy, whilst no less alone and
+gloomy rode I amid my guards. The thing he had revealed to me had torn
+away a veil from my silly eyes. It had made me understand a hundred
+little matters that hitherto had been puzzling me. And I saw how utterly
+and fatuously blind I had been to things which even Fra Gervasio had
+apprehended from just the relation he had drawn from me.
+
+It was as we were entering Piacenza by the Gate of San Lazzaro that I
+again drew my cousin to my side.
+
+"Sir Captain!" I called to him, for I could not bring myself to address
+him as cousin now. He came, inquiry in his eyes.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked.
+
+He stared at me a moment, as if my effrontery astonished him. Then
+he shrugged and sneered. "I would I knew for certain," was his fierce
+answer. "I would I knew. Then should I have the pair of you." And I saw
+it in his face how unforgivingly he hated me out of his savage jealousy.
+"My Lord Gambara might tell you. I scarcely doubt it. Were I but
+certain, what a reckoning should I not present! He may be Governor of
+Piacenza, but were he Governor of Hell he should not escape me." And
+with that he rode ahead again, and left me.
+
+The rumour of our coming sped through the streets ahead of us, and out
+of the houses poured the townsfolk to watch our passage and to point me
+out one to another with many whisperings and solemn head-waggings. And
+the farther we advanced, the greater was the concourse, until by the
+time we reached the square before the Communal Palace we found there
+what amounted to a mob awaiting us.
+
+My guards closed round me as if to protect me from that crowd. But I
+was strangely without fear, and presently I was to see how little cause
+there was for any, and to realize that the action of my guards was
+sprung from a very different motive.
+
+The people stood silent, and on every upturned face of which I caught a
+glimpse I saw something that was akin to pity. Presently, however, as we
+drew nearer to the Palace, a murmur began to rise. It swelled and grew
+fierce. Suddenly a cry rose vehement and clear.
+
+"Rescue! Rescue!"
+
+"He is the Lord of Mondolfo," shouted one tall fellow, "and the
+Cardinal-legate makes a cat's-paw of him! He is to suffer for Messer
+Gambara's villainy!"
+
+Again he was answered by the cry--"Rescue! Rescue!" whilst some added an
+angry--"Death to the Legate!"
+
+Whilst I was deeply marvelling at all this, Cosimo looked at me over
+his shoulder, and though his lips were steady, his eyes seemed to smile,
+charged with a message of derision--and something more, something that I
+could not read. Then I heard his hard, metallic voice.
+
+"Back there, you curs! To your kennels! Out of the way, or we ride you
+down."
+
+He had drawn his sword, and his white hawk-face was so cruel and
+determined that they fell away before him and their cries died down.
+
+We passed into the courtyard of the Communal Palace, and the great
+studded gates were slammed in the faces of the mob, and barred.
+
+I got down from my mule, and was conducted at Cosimo's bidding to one
+of the dungeons under the Palace, where I was left with the announcement
+that I must present myself to-morrow before the Tribunal of the Ruota.
+
+I flung myself down upon the dried rushes that had been heaped in
+a corner to do duty for a bed, and I abandoned myself to my bitter
+thoughts. In particular I pondered the meaning of the crowd's strange
+attitude. Nor was it a riddle difficult to resolve. It was evident that
+believing Gambara, as they did, to be Giuliana's lover, and informed
+perhaps--invention swelling rumour as it will--that the Cardinal-legate
+had ridden late last night to Fifanti's house, it had been put about
+that the foul murder done there was Messer Gambara's work.
+
+Thus was the Legate reaping the harvest of all the hatred he had sown,
+of all the tyranny and extortion of his iron rule in Piacenza. And
+willing to believe any evil of the man they hated, they not only laid
+Fifanti's death at his door, but they went to further lengths and
+accounted that I was the cat's-paw; that I was to be sacrificed to save
+the Legate's face and reputation. They remembered perhaps the ill-odour
+in which we Anguissola of Mondolfo had been at Rome, for the ghibelline
+leanings that ever had been ours and for the rebellion of my father
+against the Pontifical sway; and their conclusions gathered a sort of
+confirmation from that circumstance.
+
+Long upon the very edge of mutiny and revolt against Gambara's
+injustice, it had needed but what seemed a crowning one such as this to
+quicken their hatred into expression.
+
+It was all very clear and obvious, and it seemed to me that to-morrow's
+trial should be very interesting. I had but to deny; I had but to make
+myself the mouthpiece of the rumour that was abroad, and Heaven alone
+could foretell what the consequences might be.
+
+Then I smiled bitterly to myself. Deny? O, no! That was a last vileness
+I could not perpetrate. The Ruota should hear the truth, and Gambara
+should be left to shelter Giuliana, who--Cosimo was assured--had fled to
+him in her need as to a natural protector.
+
+It was a bitter thought. The intensity of that bitterness made me
+realize with alarm how it still was with me. And pondering this, I fell
+asleep, utterly worn out in body and in mind by the awful turmoil of
+that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+
+I awakened to find a man standing beside me. He was muffled in a black
+cloak and carried a lanthorn. Behind him the door gaped as he had left
+it.
+
+Instantly I sat up, conscious of my circumstance and surroundings, and
+at my movement this visitor spoke.
+
+"You sleep very soundly for a man in your case." said he, and the voice
+was that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical.
+
+He set down the lanthorn on a stool, whence it shed a wheel of yellow
+light intersected with black beams. His cloak fell apart, and I saw that
+he was dressed for riding, very plainly, in sombre garments, and that he
+was armed.
+
+He stood slightly to one side that the light might fall upon my face,
+leaving his own in shadow; thus he considered me for some moments in
+silence. At last, very slowly, very bitterly, shaking his head as he
+spoke.
+
+"You fool, you clumsy fool!" he said.
+
+Having drawn, as you have seen, my own conclusions from the attitude of
+the mob, I was in little doubt as to the precise bearing of his words.
+
+I answered him sincerely. "If folly were all my guilt," said I, "it
+would be well."
+
+He sniffed impatiently. "Still sanctimonious!" he sneered. "Tcha! Up
+now, and play the man, at least. You have shed your robe of sanctity,
+Messer Agostino; have done with pretence!"
+
+"I do not pretend," I answered him. "And as for playing the man, I shall
+accept what punishment the law may have for me with fortitude at least.
+If I can but expiate..."
+
+"Expiate a fig!" he snapped, interrupting me. "Why do you suppose that I
+am here?"
+
+"I wait to learn."
+
+"I am here because through your folly you have undone us all. What
+need," he cried, the anger of expostulation quivering in his voice,
+"what need was there to kill that oaf Fifanti?"
+
+"He would have killed me," said I. "I slew him in self-defence."
+
+"Ha! And do you hope to save your neck with such a plea?"
+
+"Nay. I have no thought of urging it. I but tell it you."
+
+"There is not the need to tell me anything," he answered, his anger
+very plain. "I am very well informed of all. Rather, let me tell you
+something. Do you realize, sir, that you have made it impossible for me
+to abide another day in Piacenza?"
+
+"I am sorry..." I began lamely.
+
+"Present your regrets to Satan," he snapped. "Me they avail nothing.
+I am put to the necessity of abandoning my governorship and fleeing by
+night like a hunted thief. And I have you to thank for it. You see me on
+the point of departure. My horses wait above. So you may add my ruin to
+the other fine things you accomplished yesternight. For a saint you are
+over-busy, sir." And he turned away and strode the length of my cell and
+back, so that, at last, I had a glimpse of his face, which was drawn and
+scowling. Gone now was the last vestige of his habitual silkiness; the
+pomander-ball hung neglected, and his delicate fingers tugged viciously
+at his little pointed beard, his great sapphire ring flashing sombrely.
+
+"Look you, Ser Agostino, I could kill you and take joy in it. I could,
+by God!"
+
+His eyes upon me, he drew from his breast a folded paper. "Instead, I
+bring you liberty. I open your doors for you, and bid you escape. Here,
+man, take this paper. Present it to the officer at the Fodesta Gate.
+He will let you pass. And then away with you, out of the territory of
+Piacenza."
+
+For an instant my heart-beats seemed suspended by astonishment. I swung
+my legs round, and half rose, excitedly. Then I sank back again. My mind
+was made up. I was tired of the world; sick of life the first draught of
+which had turned so bitter in my throat. If by my death I might expiate
+my sins and win pardon by my submission and humility, it was all I could
+desire. I should be glad to be released from all the misery and sorrow
+into which I had been born.
+
+I told him so in some few words. "You mean me well, my lord," I ended,
+"and I thank you. But..."
+
+"By God and the Saints!" he blazed, "I do not mean you well at all. I
+mean you anything but well. Have I not said that I could kill you
+with satisfaction? Whatever be the sins of Egidio Gambara, he is no
+hypocrite, and he lets his enemies see his face unmasked."
+
+"But, then," I cried, amazed, "why do you offer me my freedom?"
+
+"Because this cursed populace is in such a temper that if you are
+brought to trial I know not what may happen. As likely as not we shall
+have an insurrection, open revolt against the Pontifical authority, and
+red war in the streets. And this is not the time for it.
+
+"The Holy Father requires the submission of these people. We are upon
+the eve of Duke Pier Luigi's coming to occupy his new States, and it
+imports that he should be well received, that he should be given a
+loving welcome by his subjects. If, instead, they meet him with revolt
+and defiance, the reasons will be sought, and the blame of the affair
+will recoil upon me. Your cousin Cosimo will see to that. He is a very
+subtle gentleman, this cousin of yours, and he has a way of working to
+his own profit. So now you understand. I have no mind to be crushed in
+this business. Enough have I suffered already through you, enough am
+I suffering in resigning my governorship. So there is but one way
+out. There must be no trial to-morrow. It must be known that you have
+escaped. Thus they will be quieted, and the matter will blow over. So
+now, Ser Agostino, we understand each other. You must go."
+
+"And whither am I to go?" I cried, remembering my mother and that
+Mondolfo--the only place of safety--was closed to me by her cruelly
+pious hands.
+
+"Whither?" he echoed. "What do I care? To Hell--anywhere, so that you
+get out of this."
+
+"I'd sooner hang," said I quite seriously.
+
+"You'ld hang and welcome, for all the love I bear you," he answered, his
+impatience growing. "But if you hang blood will be shed, innocent lives
+will be lost, and I myself may come to suffer."
+
+"For you, sir, I care nothing," I answered him, taking his own tone, and
+returning him the same brutal frankness that he used with me. "That you
+deserve to suffer I do not doubt. But since other blood than yours might
+be shed as you say, since innocent lives might be lost... Give me the
+paper."
+
+He was frowning upon me, and smiling viperishly at the same time.
+"I like your frankness better than your piety," said he. "So now we
+understand each other, and know that neither is in the other's debt.
+Hereafter beware of Egidio Gambara. I give you this last loyal warning.
+See that you do not come into my way again."
+
+I rose and looked at him--looked down from my greater height. I knew
+well the source of this last, parting show of hatred. Like Cosimo's
+it sprang from jealousy. And a growth more potential of evil does not
+exist.
+
+He bore my glance a moment, then turned and took up the lanthorn.
+"Come," he said, and obediently I followed him up the winding stone
+staircase, and so to the very gates of the Palace.
+
+We met no one. What had become of the guards, I cannot think; but I am
+satisfied that Gambara himself had removed them. He opened the wicket
+for me, and as I stepped out he gave me the paper and whistled softly.
+Almost at once I heard a sound of muffled hooves under the colonnade,
+and presently loomed the figures of a man and a mule; both dim and
+ghostly in the pearly light of dawn--for that was the hour.
+
+Gambara followed me out, and pulled the wicket after him.
+
+"That beast is for you," he said curtly. "It will the better enable you
+to get away."
+
+As curtly I acknowledged the gift, and mounted whilst the groom held the
+stirrup for me.
+
+O! it was the oddest of transactions! My Lord Gambara with death in his
+heart very reluctantly giving me a life I did not want.
+
+I dug my heels into the mule's sides and started across the silent,
+empty square, then plunged into a narrow street where the gloom was
+almost as of midnight, and so pushed on.
+
+I came out into the open space before the Porta Fodesta, and so to the
+gate itself. From one of the windows of the gatehouse, a light shone
+yellow, and, presently, in answer to my call, out came an officer
+followed by two men, one of whom carried a lanthorn swinging from his
+pike. He held this light aloft, whilst the officer surveyed me.
+
+"What now?" he challenged. "None passes out to-night."
+
+For answer I thrust the paper under his nose. "Orders from my Lord
+Gambara," said I.
+
+But he never looked at it. "None passes out to-night," he repeated
+imperturbably. "So run my orders."
+
+"Orders from whom?" quoth I, surprised by his tone and manner.
+
+"From the Captain of Justice, if you must know. So you may get you back
+whence you came, and wait till daylight."
+
+"Ah, but stay," I said. "I do not think you can have heard me. I carry
+orders from my Lord the Governor. The Captain of Justice cannot overbear
+these." And I shook the paper insistently.
+
+"My orders are that none is to pass--not even the Governor himself," he
+answered firmly.
+
+It was very daring of Cosimo, and I saw his aim. He was, as Gambara
+had said, a very subtle gentleman. He, too, had set his finger upon the
+pulse of the populace, and perceived what might be expected of it.
+He was athirst for vengeance, as he had shown me, and determined that
+neither I nor Gambara should escape. First, I must be tried, condemned,
+and hanged, and then he trusted, no doubt, that Gambara would be torn
+in pieces; and it was quite possible that Messer Cosimo himself would
+secretly find means to fan the mob's indignation against the Legate into
+fierce activity. And it seemed that the game was in his hands, for this
+officer's resoluteness showed how implicitly my cousin was obeyed.
+
+Of that same resoluteness of the lieutenant's I was to have a yet
+more signal proof. For presently, whilst still I stood there vainly
+remonstrating, down the street behind me rode Gambara himself on a tall
+horse, followed by a mule-litter and an escort of half a score of armed
+grooms.
+
+He uttered an exclamation when he saw me still there, the gate shut and
+the officer in talk with me. He spurred quickly forward.
+
+"How is this?" he demanded haughtily and angrily. "This man rides upon
+the business of the State. Why this delay to open for him?"
+
+"My orders," said the lieutenant, civilly but firmly, "are that none
+passes out to-night."
+
+"Do you know me?" demanded Gambara.
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"And you dare talk to me of your orders? There are no orders here in
+Piacenza but my orders. Set me wide the wicket of that gate. I myself
+must pass."
+
+"My lord, I dare not."
+
+"You are insubordinate," said the Legate, of a sudden very cold.
+
+He had no need to ask whose orders were these. At once he saw the
+trammel spread for him. But if Messer Cosimo was subtle, so, too, was
+Messer Gambara. By not so much as a word did he set his authority in
+question with the officer.
+
+"You are insubordinate," was all he answered him, and then to the two
+men-at-arms behind the lieutenant--"Ho, there!" he called. "Bring out
+the guard. I am Egidio Gambara, your Governor."
+
+So calm and firm and full of assurance was his tone, so unquestionable
+his right to command them, that the men sprang instantly to obey him.
+
+"What would you do, my lord?" quoth the officer, and he seemed daunted.
+
+"Buffoon," said Gambara between his teeth. "You shall see."
+
+Six men came hurrying from the gatehouse, and the Cardinal called to
+them.
+
+"Let the corporal stand forth," he said.
+
+A man advanced a pace from the rank they had hastily formed and saluted.
+
+"Place me your officer under arrest," said the Legate coldly, advancing
+no reason for the order. "Let him be locked in the gatehouse until my
+return; and do you, sir corporal, take command here meanwhile."
+
+The startled fellow saluted again, and advanced upon his officer. The
+lieutenant looked up with sudden uneasiness in his eyes. He had gone too
+far. He had not reckoned upon being dealt with in this summary fashion.
+He had been bold so long as he conceived himself no more than Cosimo's
+mouthpiece, obeying orders for the issuing of which Cosimo must answer.
+Instead, it seemed, the Governor intended that he should answer for them
+himself. Whatever he now dared, he knew--as Gambara knew--that his men
+would never dare to disobey the Governor, who was the supreme authority
+there under the Pope.
+
+"My lord," he exclaimed, "I had my orders from the Captain of Justice."
+
+"And dare you to say that your orders included my messengers and my own
+self?" thundered the dainty prelate.
+
+"Explicitly, my lord," answered the lieutenant.
+
+"It shall be dealt with on my return, and if what you say is proved
+true, the Captain of Justice shall suffer with yourself for this
+treason--for that is the offence. Take him away, and someone open me
+that gate."
+
+There was an end to disobedience, and a moment or two later we stood
+outside the town, on the bank of the river, which gurgled and flowed
+away smoothly and mistily in the growing light, between the rows of
+stalwart poplars that stood like sentinels to guard it.
+
+"And now begone," said Gambara curtly to me, and wheeling my mule I rode
+for the bridge of boats, crossed it, and set myself to breast the slopes
+beyond.
+
+Midway up I checked and looked back across the wide water. The light had
+grown quite strong by now, and in the east there was a faint pink flush
+to herald the approaching sun. Away beyond the river, moving southward,
+I could just make out the Legate's little cavalcade. And then, for the
+first time, a question leapt in my mind concerning the litter whose
+leathern curtains had remained so closely drawn. Whom did it contain?
+Could it be Giuliana? Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she
+had gone to Gambara for shelter?
+
+A little while ago I had sighed for death and exulted in the chance of
+expiation and of purging myself of the foulness of sin. And now, at
+the sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate
+jealousy touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my
+downfall. O, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles
+in such poor natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the
+desire for wrong!
+
+It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things;
+in vain that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent
+resolves; in vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the
+confession at Fra Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance
+and make amends by the purity of all my after-life. Vain was it all.
+
+I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking
+it, I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then
+away to the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.
+
+I must know. I must! It was no matter that conscience told me that here
+was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I
+was divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness. I
+must know. And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer
+Gambara, who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.
+
+I had no difficulty in following them. A question here, and a question
+there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
+necessary to keep me on their track. And ever, it seemed to me from the
+answers that I got, was I lessening the distance that separated us.
+
+I was weak for want of food, for the last time that I had eaten was
+yesterday at noon, at Mondolfo; and then but little. Yet all I had this
+day were some bunches of grapes that I stole in passing from a vineyard
+and ate as I trotted on along that eternal Via Aemilia.
+
+It was towards noon, at last, that a taverner at Castel Guelfo informed
+me that my party had passed through the town but half an hour ahead of
+me. At the news I urged my already weary beast along, for unless I made
+good haste now it might well happen that Parma should swallow up Gambara
+and his party ere I overtook them. And then, some ten minutes later,
+I caught a flutter of garments half a mile or so ahead of me, amid the
+elms. I quitted the road and entered the woodland. A little way I still
+rode; then, dismounting, I tethered my mule, and went forward cautiously
+on foot.
+
+I found them in a little sunken dell by a tiny rivulet. Lying on my
+belly in the long grass above, I looked down upon them with a black
+hatred of jealousy in my heart.
+
+They were reclining there, in that cool, fragrant spot in the shadow of
+a great beech-tree. A cloth had been spread upon the ground, and upon
+this were platters of roast meats, white bread and fruits, and a flagon
+of wine, a second flagon standing in the brook to cool.
+
+My Lord Gambara was talking and she was regarding him with eyes that
+were half veiled, a slow, insolent smile upon her matchless face.
+Presently at something that he said she laughed outright, a laugh so
+tuneful and light-hearted that I thought I must be dreaming all this. It
+was the gay, frank, innocent laughter of a child; and I never heard in
+all my life a sound that caused me so much horror. He leaned across to
+her, and stroked her velvet cheek with his delicate hand, whilst she
+suffered it in that lazy fashion that was so peculiarly her own.
+
+I stayed for no more. I wriggled back a little way to where a clump of
+hazel permitted me to rise without being seen. Thence I fled the spot.
+And as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame
+but one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and
+that word was "Trull!"
+
+Two nights ago had happened enough to stamp her soul for ever with
+sorrow and despair. Yet she could sit there, laughing and feasting and
+trulling it lightly with the Legate!
+
+The little that remained me of my illusions was shivered in that hour.
+There was, I swore, no good in all the world; for even where goodness
+sought to find a way, it grew distorted, as in my mother's case. And yet
+through all her pietism surely she had been right! There was no peace,
+no happiness save in the cloister. And at last the full bitterness of
+penitence and regret overtook me when I reflected that by my own act I
+had rendered myself for ever unworthy of the cloister's benign shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+
+I went blindly through the tangle of undergrowth, stumbling at every
+step and scarce noticing that I stumbled; and in this fashion I came
+presently back to my mule.
+
+I mounted and rode amain, not by the way that I had come, but westward;
+not by road, but by bridle-paths, through meadow-land and forest, up
+hill and down, like a man entranced, not knowing whither I went nor
+caring.
+
+Besides, whither was I to go? Like my father before me I was an outcast,
+a fugitive outlaw. But this troubled me not yet. My mind, my wounded,
+tortured mind was all upon the past. It was of Giuliana that I thought
+as I rode in the noontide warmth of that September day. And never can
+human brain have held a sorer conflict of reflection than was mine.
+
+No shadow now remained of the humour that had possessed me in the hour
+in which I had repudiated her after the murder of Fifanti. I had heard
+Fra Gervasio deliver judgment upon her, and I had doubted his justice,
+felt that he used her mercilessly. My own sight had now confirmed to me
+the truth of what he had said; but in doing so--in allowing me to
+see her in another man's possession--a very rage of jealousy had been
+stirred in me and a greater rage of longing.
+
+This longing followed upon my first bitter denunciation of her; and it
+followed soon. It is in our natures, as I then experienced, never more
+to desire a thing than when we see it lost to us. Bitterly now did I
+reproach myself for not having borne her off with me two nights ago when
+I had fled Fifanti's house, when she herself had urged that course upon
+me. I despised myself, out of my present want, for my repudiation of
+her--a hundred times more bitterly than I had despised myself when I
+imagined that I had done a vileness by that repudiation.
+
+Never until now, did it seem to me, had I known how deeply I loved her,
+how deeply the roots of our passion had burrowed down into my heart,
+and fastened there to be eradicated only with life itself. So thought I
+then; and thinking so I cried her name aloud, called to her through the
+scented pine-woods, thus voicing my longing and my despair.
+
+And swift on the heels of this would come another mood. There would come
+the consciousness of the sin of it all, the imperative need to cleanse
+myself of this, to efface her memory from my soul which could not hold
+it without sinning anew in fierce desire. I strove to do so with all my
+poor weak might. I denounced her to myself again for a soulless harlot;
+blamed her for all the ill that had befallen me; accounted her the
+very hand that had wielded me, a senseless instrument, to slay her
+importunate husband.
+
+And then I perceived that this was as pitiful a ruse of self-deception
+as that of the fox in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes
+above him. For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort
+of his will the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.
+
+Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
+ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came
+to the broad bed of a river.
+
+A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which
+was diminished by the long drought. Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
+stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
+brown city upon the rising ground.
+
+The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the
+ancient boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the
+historic spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to
+win back to France after the occupation of Naples. But the grotesque
+little king who had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my
+thoughts not at all just then. The Taro brought me memories not of
+battle, but of home. To reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up
+the valley towards that long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me,
+with the tall bulks of Mount Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps
+sparkling in the flood of sunshine that poured down upon them.
+Two hours, or perhaps three at most, along the track of that cool,
+glittering water, and the grey citadel of Mondolfo would come into view.
+
+It was this very reflection that brought me now to consider my
+condition; to ask myself whither I should turn. Money I had none--not so
+much as a single copper grosso. To sell I had nothing but the clothes I
+stood in--black, clerkly garments that I had got yesterday at Mondolfo.
+Not so much as a weapon had I that I might have bartered for a few
+coins. There was the mule; that should yield a ducat or two. But when
+this was spent, what then? To go a suppliant to that pious icicle my
+mother were worse than useless.
+
+Whither was I to turn--I, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina, one of the
+wealthiest and most puissant tyrants of this Val di Taro? It provoked me
+almost to laughter, of a fierce and bitter sort. Perhaps some peasant
+of the contado would take pity on his lord and give him shelter and
+nourishment in exchange for such labour as his lord might turn his stout
+limbs to upon that peasant's land, which was my own.
+
+I might perhaps essay it. Certainly it was the only thing that was left
+me. For against my mother and to support my rights I might not invoke
+a law which had placed me under a ban, a law that would deal me out its
+rigours did I reveal myself.
+
+Then I had thoughts of seeking sanctuary in some monastery, of offering
+myself as a lay-brother, to do menial work, and in this way perhaps I
+might find peace, and, in a lesser degree than was originally intended,
+the comforts of the religion to which I had been so grossly unfaithful.
+The thought grew and developed into a resolve. It brought me some
+comfort. It became a desire.
+
+I pushed on, following the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper,
+conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule was
+showing signs of weariness.
+
+Some three miles farther, having by then penetrated the green rampart
+of the foothills, I came upon the little village of Pojetta. It is a
+village composed of a single street throwing out as its branches a few
+narrow alleys, possessing a dingy church and a dingier tavern; this last
+had for only sign a bunch of withered rosemary that hung above its grimy
+doors.
+
+I drew rein there as utterly weary as my mule, hungry and thirsty
+and weak. I got down and invited the suspicious scrutiny of the
+lantern-jawed taverner, who, for all that my appearance was humble
+enough in such garments as I wore, must have accounted me none the less
+of too fine an air for such a house as his.
+
+"Care for my beast," I bade him. "I shall stay here an hour or two."
+
+He nodded surlily, and led the mule away, whilst I entered the tavern's
+single room. Coming into it from the sunlight I could scarcely see
+anything at first, so dark did the place seem. What light there was came
+through the open door; for the chamber's single window had long since
+been rendered opaque by a screen of accumulated dust and cobwebs. It
+was a roomy place, low-ceilinged with blackened rafters running parallel
+across its dirty yellow wash.
+
+The floor was strewn with foul rushes that must have lain unchanged for
+months, slippery with grease and littered with bones that had been flung
+there by the polite guests the place was wont to entertain. And it stank
+most vilely of rancid oil and burnt meats and other things indefinable
+in all but their acrid, nauseating, unclean pungency.
+
+A fire was burning low at the room's far end, and over this a girl
+was stooping, tending something in a stew-pot. She looked round at my
+advent, and revealed herself for a tall, black-haired, sloe-eyed wench,
+comely in a rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms
+which were bared to the elbow.
+
+Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron. She
+slouched forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled
+out a stool for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of
+the floor.
+
+Grouped about the upper end of this table sat four men of the peasant
+type, sun-tanned, bearded, and rudely garbed in loose jerkins and cross
+gartered leg cloths.
+
+A silence had fallen upon them as I entered, and they too were now
+inspecting me with a frank interest which in their simple way they made
+no attempt to conceal.
+
+I sank wearily to the stool, paying little heed to them, and in answer
+to the girl's invitation to command her, I begged for meat and bread
+and wine. Whilst she was preparing these, one of the men addressed me
+civilly; and I answered him as civilly but absently, for I had enough of
+other matters to engage my thoughts. Then another of them questioned me
+in a friendly tone as to whence I came. Instinctively I concealed the
+truth, answering vaguely that I was from Castel Guelfo--which was the
+neighbourhood in which I had overtaken my Lord Gambara and Giuliana.
+
+"And what do they say at Castel Guelfo of the things that are happening
+in Piacenza?" asked another.
+
+"In Piacenza?" quoth I. "Why, what is happening in Piacenza?"
+
+Eagerly, with an ardour to show themselves intimate with the affairs of
+towns, as is the way of rustics, they related to me what already I had
+gathered to be the vulgar version of Fifanti's death. Each spoke in
+turn, cutting in the moment another paused to breathe, and sometimes
+they spoke together, each anxious to have the extent of his information
+revealed and appreciated.
+
+And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of
+Fifanti's wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and
+had gone to visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying
+near by in wait, and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon
+after and attacked him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him. And
+then that wily, fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the
+young Lord of Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and
+he had caused the young man's arrest. But this the Piacentini would not
+endure. They had risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was
+fled to Rome or Parma, whilst the authorities to avoid a scandal had
+connived at the escape of Messer d'Anguissola, who was also gone, no man
+knew whither.
+
+The news had travelled speedily into that mountain fastness, it seemed.
+But it had been garbled at its source. The Piacentini conceived that
+they held some evidence of what they believed--the evidence of the lad
+whom Fifanti had left to spy and who had borne him the tale that the
+Cardinal was within. This evidence they accounted well-confirmed by the
+Legate's flight.
+
+Thus is history written. Not a doubt but that some industrious scribe in
+Piacenza with a grudge against Gambara, would set down what was the
+talk of the town; and hereafter, it is not to be doubted, the murder of
+Astorre Fifanti for the vilest of all motives will be added to the many
+crimes of Egidio Gambara, that posterity may execrate his name even
+beyond its already rich enough deserts.
+
+I heard them in silence and but little moved, yet with a question now
+and then to probe how far this silly story went in detail. And whilst
+they were still heaping abuse upon the Legate--of whom they spoke as
+Jews may speak of pork--came the lantern-jawed host with a dish of
+broiled goat, some bread, and a jug of wine. This he set before me, then
+joined them in their vituperation of Messer Gambara.
+
+I ate ravenously, and for all that I do not doubt the meat was tough
+and burnt, yet at the time those pieces of broiled goat upon that dirty
+table seemed the sweetest food that ever had been set before me.
+
+Finding that I was but indifferently communicative and had little news
+to give them, the peasants fell to gossiping among themselves, and
+they were presently joined by the girl, whose name, it seemed, was
+Giovannozza. She came to startle them with the rumour of a fresh miracle
+attributed to the hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+I looked up with more interest than I had hitherto shown in anything
+that had been said, and I inquired who might be this anchorite.
+
+"Sainted Virgin!" cried the girl, setting her hands upon her generous
+hips, and turning her bold sloe-eyes upon me in a stare of incredulity.
+"Whence are you, sir, that you seem to know nothing of the world? You
+had not heard the news of Piacenza, which must be known to everyone by
+now; and you have never heard of the anchorite of Monte Orsaro!" She
+appealed by a gesture to Heaven against the Stygian darkness of my mind.
+
+"He is a very holy man," said one of the peasants.
+
+"And he dwells alone in a hut midway up the mountain," added a second.
+
+"In a hut which he built for himself with his own hands," a third
+explained.
+
+"And he lives on nuts and herbs and such scraps of food as are left
+him by the charitable," put in the fourth, to show himself as full of
+knowledge as his fellows.
+
+But now it was Giovannozza who took up the story, firmly and resolutely;
+and being a woman she easily kept her tongue going and overbore the
+peasants so that they had no further share in the tale until it was
+entirely told. From her I learnt that the anchorite, one Fra Sebastiano,
+possessed a miraculous image of the blessed martyr St. Sebastian, whose
+wounds miraculously bled during Passion Week, and that there were no
+ills in the world that this blood would not cure, provided that those to
+whom it was applied were clean of mortal sin and imbued with the spirit
+of grace and faith.
+
+No pious wayfarer going over the Pass of Cisa into Tuscany but would
+turn aside to kiss the image and ask a blessing at the hands of the
+anchorite; and yearly in the season of the miraculous manifestation,
+great pilgrimages were made to the hermitage by folk from the Valleys of
+the Taro and Bagnanza, and even from beyond the Apennines. So that Fra
+Sebastiano gathered great store of alms, part of which he redistributed
+amongst the poor, part of which he was saving to build a bridge over
+the Bagnanza torrent, in crossing which so many poor folk had lost their
+lives.
+
+I listened intently to the tale of wonders that followed, and now the
+peasants joined in again, each with a story of some marvellous cure of
+which he had direct knowledge. And many and amazing were the details
+they gave me of the saint--for they spoke of him as a saint already--so
+that no doubt lingered in my mind of the holiness of this anchorite.
+
+Giovannozza related how a goatherd coming one night over the pass had
+heard from the neighbourhood of the hut the sounds of singing, and the
+music was the strangest and sweetest ever sounded on earth, so that it
+threw the poor fellow into a strange ecstasy, and it was beyond doubt
+that what he had heard was an angel choir. And then one of the peasants,
+the tallest and blackest of the four, swore with a great oath that one
+night when he himself had been in the hills he had seen the hermit's hut
+all aglow with heavenly light against the black mass of the mountain.
+
+All this left me presently very thoughtful, filled with wonder and
+amazement. Then their talk shifted again, and it was of the vintage they
+discoursed, the fine yield of grapes about Fontana Fredda, and the heavy
+crop of oil that there would be that year. And then with the hum of
+their voices gradually receding, it ceased altogether for me, and I was
+asleep with my head pillowed upon my arms.
+
+It would be an hour later when I awakened, a little stiff and cramped
+from the uncomfortable position in which I had rested. The peasants had
+departed and the surly-faced host was standing at my side.
+
+"You should be resuming your journey," said he, seeing me awake. "It
+wants but a couple of hours to sunset, and if you are going over the
+pass it were well not to let the night overtake you."
+
+"My journey?" said I aloud, and looked askance at him.
+
+Whither, in Heaven's name, was I journeying?
+
+Then I bethought me of my earlier resolve to seek shelter in some
+convent, and his mention of the pass caused me to think now that it
+would be wiser to cross the mountains into Tuscany. There I should be
+beyond the reach of the talons of the Farnese law, which might close
+upon me again at any time so long as I was upon Pontifical territory.
+
+I rose heavily, and suddenly bethought me of my utter lack of money.
+It dismayed me for a moment. Then I remembered the mule, and determined
+that I must go afoot.
+
+"I have a mule to sell," said I, "the beast in your stables."
+
+He scratched his ear, reflecting no doubt upon the drift of my
+announcement. "Yes?" he said dubiously. "And to what market are you
+taking it?"
+
+"I am offering it to you," said I.
+
+"To me?" he cried, and instantly suspicion entered his crafty eye and
+darkened his brow. "Where got you the mule?" he asked, and snapped his
+lips together.
+
+The girl entering at that moment stood at gaze, listening.
+
+"Where did I get it?" I echoed. "What is that to you?"
+
+He smiled unpleasantly. "It is this to me: that if the bargelli were to
+come up here and discover a stolen mule in my stables, it would be an
+ill thing for me."
+
+I flushed angrily. "Do you imply that I stole the mule?" said I, so
+fiercely that he changed his air.
+
+"Nay now, nay now," he soothed me. "And, after all, it happens that I do
+not want a mule. I have one mule already, and I am a poor man, and..."
+
+"A fig for your whines," said I. "Here is the case. I have no money--not
+a grosso. So the mule must pay for my dinner. Name your price, and let
+us have done."
+
+"Ha!" he fumed at me. "I am to buy your stolen beast, am I? I am to be
+frightened by your violence into buying it? Be off, you rogue, or I'll
+raise the village and make short work of you. Be off, I say!"
+
+He backed away as he spoke, towards the fireplace, and from the corner
+took a stout oaken staff. He was a villain, a thieving rogue. That much
+was plain. And it was no less plain that I must submit, and leave my
+beast to him, or else perhaps suffer a worse alternative.
+
+Had those four honest peasants still been there, he would not have dared
+to have so borne himself. But as it was, without witnesses to say how
+the thing had truly happened, if he raised the village against me how
+should they believe a man who confessed that he had eaten a dinner for
+which he could not pay? It must go very ill with me.
+
+If I tried conclusions with him, I could break him in two
+notwithstanding his staff. But there would remain the girl to give the
+alarm, and when to dishonesty I should have added violence, my case
+would be that of any common bandit.
+
+"Very well," I said. "You are a dirty, thieving rascal, and a vile one
+to take advantage of one in my position. I shall return for the mule
+another day. Meanwhile consider it in pledge for what I owe you. But see
+that you are ready for the reckoning when I present it."
+
+With that, I swung on my heel, strode past the big-eyed girl, out of
+that foul kennel into God's sweet air, followed by the ordures of speech
+which that knave flung after me.
+
+I turned up the street, setting my face towards the mountains, and
+trudged amain.
+
+Soon I was out of the village and ascending the steep road towards the
+Pass of Cisa that leads over the Apennines to Pontremoli. This way had
+Hannibal come when he penetrated into Etruria some two thousand years
+ago. I quitted the road and took to bridle-paths under the shoulder
+of the mighty Mount Prinzera. Thus I pushed on and upward through
+grey-green of olive and deep enamelled green of fig-trees, and came at
+last into a narrow gorge between two great mountains, a place of ferns
+and moisture where all was shadow and the air felt chill.
+
+Above me the mountains towered to the blue heavens, their flanks of a
+green that was in places turned to golden, where Autumn's fingers had
+already touched those heights, in places gashed with grey and purple
+wounds, where the bare rock thrust through.
+
+I went on aimlessly, and came presently upon a little fir thicket,
+through which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters. I stood at
+last upon the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty
+gorge which it had cloven itself between the hills. Thence I looked
+down a long, wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun
+were slanting, and hazily in the distance I could see the russet city
+of Fornovo which I had earlier passed that day. This torrent was the
+Bagnanza, and it effectively barred all passage. So I went up, along its
+bed, scrambling over lichened rocks or sinking my feet into carpets of
+soft, yielding moss.
+
+At length, grown weary and uncertain of my way, I sank down to rest and
+think. And my thoughts were chiefly of that hermit somewhere above me
+in these hills, and of the blessedness of such a life, remote from the
+world that man had made so evil. And then, with thinking of the world,
+came thoughts of Giuliana. Two nights ago I had held her in my arms. Two
+nights ago! And already it seemed a century remote--as remote as all the
+rest of that life of which it seemed a part. For there had been a break
+in my existence with the murder of Fifanti, and in the past two days I
+had done more living and I had aged more than in all the eighteen years
+before.
+
+Thinking of Giuliana, I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of
+her hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous
+in their smile. My spirit conjured her to stand before me all white and
+seductive as I had known her, and my longings were again upon me like a
+searing torture.
+
+I fought them hard. I sought to shut that image out. But it abode to
+mock me. And then faintly from the valley, borne upon the breeze that
+came sighing through the fir-trees, rose the tinkle of an Angelus bell.
+
+I fell upon my knees and prayed to the Mother of Purity for strength,
+and thus I came once more to peace. That done I crept under the shelter
+of a projecting rock, wrapped my cloak tightly about me, and lay down
+upon the hard ground to rest, for I was very weary.
+
+Lying there I watched the colour fading from the sky. I saw the purple
+lights in the east turn to an orange that paled into faintest yellow,
+and this again into turquoise. The shadows crept up those heights. A
+star came out overhead, then another, then a score of stars to sparkle
+silvery in the blue-black heavens.
+
+I turned on my side, and closed my eyes, seeking to sleep; and then
+quite suddenly I heard a sound of unutterable sweetness--a melody so
+faint and subtle that it had none of the form and rhythm of earthly
+music. I sat up, my breath almost arrested, and listened more intently.
+I could still hear it, but very faint and distant. It was as a sound of
+silver bells, and yet it was not quite that. I remembered the stories I
+had heard that day in the tavern at Pojetta, and the talk of the mystic
+melodies by which travellers had been drawn to the anchorite's abode. I
+noted the direction of the sound, and I determined to be guided by it,
+and to cast myself at the feet of that holy man, to implore of him who
+could heal bodies the miracle of my soul's healing and my mind's purging
+from its torment.
+
+I pushed on, then, through the luminous night, keeping as much as
+possible to the open, for under trees lesser obstacles were not to be
+discerned. The melody grew louder as I advanced, ever following the
+Bagnanza towards its source; and the stream, too, being much less
+turbulent now, did not overbear that other sound.
+
+It was a melody on long humming notes, chiefly, it seemed to me, upon
+two notes with the occasional interjection of a third and fourth, and,
+at long and rare intervals, of a fifth. It was harmonious beyond all
+description, just as it was weird and unearthly; but now that I heard
+it more distinctly it had much more the sound of bells--very sweet and
+silvery.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, I was startled by a human cry--a piteous,
+wailing cry that told of helplessness and pain. I went forward more
+quickly in the direction whence it came, rounded a stout hazel coppice,
+and stood suddenly before a rude hut of pine logs built against the
+side of the rock. Through a small unglazed window came a feeble shaft of
+light.
+
+I halted there, breathless and a little afraid. This must be the
+dwelling of the anchorite. I stood upon holy ground.
+
+And then the cry was repeated. It proceeded from the hut. I advanced to
+the window, took courage and peered in. By the light of a little brass
+oil lamp with a single wick I could faintly make out the interior.
+
+The rock itself formed the far wall of it, and in this a niche was
+carved--a deep, capacious niche in the shadows of which I could faintly
+discern a figure some two feet in height, which I doubted not would
+be the miraculous image of St. Sebastian. In front of this was a rude
+wooden pulpit set very low, and upon it a great book with iron clasps
+and a yellow, grinning skull.
+
+All this I beheld at a single glance. There was no other furniture in
+that little place, neither chair nor table; and the brass lamp was set
+upon the floor, near a heaped-up bed of rushes and dried leaves upon
+which I beheld the anchorite himself. He was lying upon his back, and
+seemed a vigorous, able-bodied man of a good length.
+
+He wore a loose brown habit roughly tied about his middle by a piece of
+rope from which was suspended an enormous string of beads. His beard and
+hair were black, but his face was livid as a corpse's, and as I looked
+at him he emitted a fresh groan, and writhed as if in mortal suffering.
+
+"O my God! My God!" I heard him crying. "Am I to die alone? Mercy! I
+repent me!" And he writhed moaning, and rolled over on his side so that
+he faced me, and I saw that his livid countenance was glistening with
+sweat.
+
+I stepped aside and lifted the latch of the rude door.
+
+"Are you suffering, father?" I asked, almost fearfully. At the sound of
+my voice, he suddenly sat up, and there was a great fear in his eyes.
+Then he fell back again with a cry.
+
+"I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee!"
+
+I entered, and crossing to his side, I went down on my knees beside him.
+
+Without giving me time to speak, he clutched my arm with one of his
+clammy hands, and raised himself painfully upon his elbow, his eyes
+burning with the fever that was in him.
+
+"A priest!" he gasped. "Get me a priest! Oh, if you would be saved
+from the flames of everlasting Hell, get me a priest to shrive me. I am
+dying, and I would not go hence with the burden of all this sin upon my
+soul."
+
+I could feel the heat of his hand through the sleeve of my coat. His
+condition was plain. A raging fever was burning out his life.
+
+"Be comforted," I said. "I will go at once." And I rose, whilst he
+poured forth his blessings upon me.
+
+At the door I checked to ask what was the nearest place.
+
+"Casi," he said hoarsely. "To your right, you will see the path down the
+hill-side. You cannot miss it. In half an hour you should be there. And
+return at once, for I have not long. I feel it."
+
+With a last word of reassurance and comfort I closed the door, and
+plunged away into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE RENUNCIATION
+
+
+I found the path the hermit spoke of, and followed its sinuous
+downhill course, now running when the ground was open, now moving more
+cautiously, yet always swiftly, when it led me through places darkened
+by trees.
+
+At the end of a half-hour I espied below me the twinkling lights of a
+village on the hill-side, and a few minutes later I was among the houses
+of Casi. To find the priest in his little cottage by the church was an
+easy matter; to tell him my errand and to induce him to come with me, to
+tend the holy man who lay dying alone in the mountain, was as easy. To
+return, however, was the most difficult part of the undertaking; for the
+upward path was steep, and the priest was old and needed such assistance
+as my own very weary limbs could scarcely render him. We had the
+advantage of a lanthorn which he insisted upon bringing, and we made as
+good progress as could be expected. But it was best part of two hours
+after my setting out before we stood once more upon the little platform
+where the hermit had his hut.
+
+We found the place in utter darkness. Through lack of oil his little
+lamp had burned itself out; and when we entered, the man on the bed of
+wattles lay singing a lewd tavern-song, which, coming from such holy
+lips, filled me with horror and amazement.
+
+But the old priest, with that vast and doleful experience of death-beds
+which belongs to men of his class, was quick to perceive the cause of
+this. The fever was flickering up before life's final extinction, and
+the poor moribund was delirious and knew not what he said.
+
+For an hour we watched beside him, waiting. The priest was confident
+that there would be a return of consciousness and a spell of lucidity
+before the end.
+
+Through that lugubrious hour I squatted there, watching the awful
+process of human dissolution for the first time.
+
+Save in the case of Fifanti I had never yet seen death; nor could it be
+said that I had really seen it then. With the pedant, death had been a
+sudden sharp severing of the thread of life, and I had been conscious
+that he was dead without any appreciation of death itself, blinded in
+part by my own exalted condition at the time.
+
+But in this death of Fra Sebastiano I was heated by no participation.
+I was an unwilling and detached spectator, brought there by force of
+circumstance; and my mind received from the spectacle an impression not
+easily to be effaced, an impression which may have been answerable in
+part for that which followed.
+
+Towards dawn at last the sick man's babblings--and they were mostly as
+profane and lewd as his occasional bursts of song--were quieted. The
+unseeing glitter of his eyes that had ever and anon been turned upon us
+was changed to a dull and heavy consciousness, and he struggled to rise,
+but his limbs refused their office.
+
+The priest leaned over him with a whispered word of comfort, then turned
+and signed to me to leave the hut. I rose, and went towards the door.
+But I had scarcely reached it when there was a hoarse cry behind me
+followed by a gasping sob from the priest. I started round to see the
+hermit lying on his back, his face rigid, his mouth open and idiotic,
+his eyes more leaden than they had been a moment since.
+
+"What is it?" I cried, despite myself.
+
+"He has gone, my son," answered the old priest sorrowfully. "But he
+was contrite, and he had lived a saint." And drawing from his breast a
+little silver box, he proceeded to perform the last rites upon the body
+from which the soul was already fled.
+
+I came slowly back and knelt beside him, and long we remained there
+in silent prayer for the repose of that blessed spirit. And whilst we
+prayed the wind rose outside, and a storm grew in the bosom of the night
+that had been so fair and tranquil. The lightning flashed and illumined
+the interior of that hut with a vividness as of broad daylight, throwing
+into livid relief the arrow-pierced St. Sebastian in the niche and the
+ghastly, grinning skull upon the hermit's pulpit.
+
+The thunder crashed and crackled, and the echoes of its artillery went
+booming and rolling round the hills, whilst the rain fell in a terrific
+lashing downpour. Some of it finding a weakness in the roof, trickled
+and dripped and formed a puddle in the middle of the hut.
+
+For upwards of an hour the storm raged, and all the while we remained
+upon our knees beside the dead anchorite. Then the thunder receded and
+gradually died away in the distance; the rain ceased; and the dawn crept
+pale as a moon-stone adown the valley.
+
+We went out to breathe the freshened air just as the first touches of
+the sun quickened to an opal splendour the pallor of that daybreak.
+All the earth was steaming, and the Bagnanza, suddenly swollen, went
+thundering down the gorge.
+
+At sunrise we dug a grave just below the platform with a spade which I
+found in the hut. There we buried the hermit, and over the spot I made a
+great cross with the largest stones that I could find. The priest would
+have given him burial in the hut itself; but I suggested that perhaps
+there might be some other who would be willing to take the hermit's
+place, and consecrate his life to carrying on the man's pious work
+of guarding that shrine and collecting alms for the poor and for the
+building of the bridge.
+
+My tone caused the priest to look at me with sharp, kindly eyes.
+
+"Have you such thoughts for yourself, perchance?" he asked me.
+
+"Unless you should adjudge me too unworthy for the office," I answered
+humbly.
+
+"But you are very young, my son," he said, and laid a kindly hand upon
+my shoulder. "Have you suffered, then, so sorely at the hands of the
+world that you should wish to renounce it and to take up this lonely
+life?"
+
+"I was intended for the priesthood, father," I replied. "I aspired to
+holy orders. But through the sins of the flesh I have rendered myself
+unworthy. Here, perhaps, I can expiate and cleanse my heart of all the
+foulness it gathered in the world."
+
+He left me an hour or so later, to make his way back to Casi, having
+heard enough of my past and having judged sufficiently of my attitude of
+mind to approve me in my determination to do penance and seek peace in
+that isolation. Before going he bade me seek him out at Casi at any
+time should any doubts assail me, or should I find that the burden I had
+taken up was too heavy for my shoulders.
+
+I watched him go down the winding, mountain path, watched the bent old
+figure in his long black gaberdine, until a turn in the path and a clump
+of chestnuts hid him from my sight.
+
+Then I first tasted the loneliness to which on that fair morning I had
+vowed myself. The desolation of it touched me and awoke self-pity in my
+heart, to extinguish utterly the faint flame of ecstasy that had warmed
+me when first I thought of taking the dead anchorite's place.
+
+I was not yet twenty, I was lord of great possessions, and of life I had
+tasted no more than one poisonous, reckless draught; yet I was done
+with the world--driven out of it by penitence. It was just; but it was
+bitter. And then I felt again that touch of ecstasy to reflect that it
+was the bitterness of the resolve that made it worthy, that through its
+very harshness was it that this path should lead to grace.
+
+Later on I busied myself with an inspection of the hut, and my first
+attentions were for the miraculous image. I looked upon it with awe, and
+I knelt to it in prayer for forgiveness for the unworthiness I brought
+to the service of the shrine.
+
+The image itself was very crude of workmanship and singularly ghastly.
+It reminded me poignantly of the Crucifix that had hung upon the
+whitewashed wall of my mother's private dining-room and had been so
+repellent to my young eyes.
+
+From two arrow wounds in the breast descended two brown streaks, relics
+of the last miraculous manifestation. The face of the young Roman
+centurion who had suffered martyrdom for his conversion to Christianity
+was smiling very sweetly and looking upwards, and in that part of his
+work the sculptor had been very happy. But the rest of the carving
+was gruesome and the anatomy was gross and bad, the figure being so
+disproportionately broad as to convey the impression of a stunted dwarf.
+
+The big book standing upon the pulpit of plain deal proved, as I had
+expected, to be a missal; and it became my custom to recite from it each
+morning thereafter the office for the day.
+
+In a rude cupboard I found a jar of baked earth that was half full of
+oil, and another larger jar containing some cakes of maize bread and
+a handful of chestnuts. There was also a brown bundle which resolved
+itself into a monkish habit within which was rolled a hair-shirt.
+
+I took pleasure in this discovery, and I set myself at once to strip off
+my secular garments and to don this coarse brown habit, which, by reason
+of my great height, descended but midway down my calves. For lack of
+sandals I went barefoot, and having made a bundle of the clothes I had
+removed I thrust them into the cupboard in the place of those which I
+had taken thence.
+
+Thus did I, who had been vowed to the anchorite order of St. Augustine,
+enter upon my life as an unordained anchorite. I dragged out the wattles
+upon which my blessed predecessor had breathed his last, and having
+swept the place clean with a bundle of hazel-switches which I cut for
+the purpose, I went to gather fresh boughs and rushes by the swollen
+torrent, and with these I made myself a bed.
+
+My existence became not only one of loneliness, but of grim privation.
+People rarely came my way, save for a few faithful women from Casi or
+Fiori who solicited my prayers in return for the oil and maize-cakes
+which they left me, and sometimes whole days would pass without the
+sight of a single human being. These maize-cakes formed my chief
+nourishment, together with a store or nuts from the hazel coppice that
+grew before my door and some chestnuts which I went further afield to
+gather in the woods. Occasionally, as a gift, there would be a jar of
+olives, which was the greatest delicacy that I savoured in those days.
+No flesh-food or fish did I ever taste, so that I grew very lean and
+often suffered hunger.
+
+My days were spent partly in prayer and partly in meditation, and I
+pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
+Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that
+great father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much
+sin as had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair. And as yet
+I had received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed
+at Piacenza. I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do
+penance first, but the penance had never been imposed. I was imposing it
+now. All my life should I impose it thus.
+
+Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought
+appalled me, for I must not die in sin.
+
+So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I
+would send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my
+hermitage, and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at
+his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+
+At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
+certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
+summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth. But anon this changed
+and I would catch the thoughts that should have been bent upon pious
+meditation glancing backward with regretful longings at that life out of
+which I had departed.
+
+I would start up in a pious rage and cast out such thoughts by more
+strenuous prayer and still more strenuous fasting. But as my body grew
+accustomed to the discomforts to which it was subjected, my mind assumed
+a rebellious freedom that clogged the work of purification upon which
+I strove to engage it. My stomach out of its very emptiness conjured
+up evil visions to torment me in the night, and with these I vainly
+wrestled until I remembered the measures which Fra Gervasio told me
+that he had taken in like case. I had then the happy inspiration to have
+recourse to the hair-shirt, which hitherto I had dreaded.
+
+It would be towards the end of October, as the days were growing colder,
+that I first put on that armour against the shafts of Satan. It galled
+me horribly and fretted my tender flesh at almost every movement; but so
+at least, at the expense of the body, I won back to some peace of mind,
+and the flesh, being quelled and subdued, no longer interposed its evil
+humours to the purity I desired for my meditations.
+
+For upwards of a month, then, the mild torture of the goat's-hair cilice
+did the office I required of it. But towards December, my skin having
+grown tough and callous from the perpetual irritation, and inured to
+the fretting of the sharp hair, my mind once more began to wander
+mutinously. To check it again I put off the cilice, and with it all
+other undergarments, retaining no more clothing than just the rough
+brown monkish habit. Thus I exposed myself to the rigours of the
+weather, for it had grown very cold in those heights where I dwelt, and
+the snows were creeping nearer adown the mountain-side.
+
+I had seen the green of the valley turn to gold and then to flaming
+brown. I had seen the fire perish out of those autumnal tints, and with
+the falling of the leaves, a slow, grey, bald decrepitude covering the
+world. And to this had now succeeded chill wintry gales that howled and
+whistled through the logs of my wretched hut, whilst the western wind
+coming down over the frozen zone above cut into me like a knife's edge.
+
+And famished as I was I felt this coldness the more, and daily I grew
+leaner until there was little left of my erstwhile lusty vigour, and I
+was reduced to a parcel of bones held together in a bag of skin, so that
+it almost seemed that I must rattle as I walked.
+
+I suffered, and yet I was glad to suffer, and took a joy in my pain,
+thanking God for the grace of permitting me to endure it, since the
+greater the discomforts of my body, the more numbed became the pain of
+my mind, the more removed from me were the lures of longing with which
+Satan still did battle for my soul. In pain itself I seemed to find
+the nepenthes that others seek from pain; in suffering was my Lethean
+draught that brought the only oblivion that I craved.
+
+I think that in those months my reason wandered a little under all this
+strain; and I think to-day that the long ecstasies into which I fell
+were largely the result of a feverishness that burned in me as a
+consequence of a chill that I had taken.
+
+I would spend long hours upon my knees in prayer and meditation. And
+remembering how others in such case as mine had known the great boon and
+blessing of heavenly visions, I prayed and hoped for some such sign
+of grace, confident in its power to sustain me thereafter against all
+possible temptation.
+
+And then, one night, as the year was touching its end, it seemed to me
+that my prayer was answered. I do not think that my vision was a dream;
+leastways, I do not think that I was asleep when it visited me. I was on
+my knees at the time, beside my bed of wattles, and it was very late
+at night. Suddenly the far end of my hut grew palely lucent, as if a
+phosphorescent vapour were rising from the ground; it waved and rolled
+as it ascended in billows of incandescence, and then out of the heart
+of it there gradually grew a figure all in white over which there was a
+cloak of deepest blue all flecked with golden stars, and in the folded
+hands a sheaf of silver lilies.
+
+I knew no fear. My pulses throbbed and my heart beat ponderously but
+rapturously as I watched the vision growing more and more distinct until
+I could make out the pale face of ineffable sweetness and the veiled
+eyes.
+
+It was the Blessed Madonna, as Messer Pordenone had painted her in the
+Church of Santa Chiara at Piacenza; the dress, the lilies, the sweet
+pale visage, all were known to me, even the billowing cloud upon which
+one little naked foot was resting.
+
+I cried out in longing and in rapture, and I held out my arms to that
+sweet vision. But even as I did so its aspect gradually changed. Under
+the upper part of the blue mantle, which formed a veil, was spread a
+mass of ruddy, gleaming hair; the snowy pallor of the face was warmed
+to the tint of ivory, and the lips deepened to scarlet and writhed in a
+voluptuous smile; the dark eyes glowed languidly; the lilies faded away,
+and the pale hands were held out to me.
+
+"Giuliana!" I cried, and my pure and piously joyous ecstasy was changed
+upon the instant to fierce, carnal longings.
+
+"Giuliana!" I held out my arms, and slowly she floated towards me, over
+the rough earthen floor of my cell.
+
+A frenzy of craving seized me. I was impatient to lock my arms once more
+about that fair sleek body. I sought to rise, to go to meet her slow
+approach, to lessen by a second this agony of waiting. But my limbs were
+powerless. I was as if cast in lead, whilst more and more slowly she
+approached me, so languorously mocking.
+
+And then revulsion took me, suddenly and without any cause or warning.
+I put my hands to my face to shut out a vision whose true significance I
+realized as in a flash.
+
+"Retro me, Sathanas!" I thundered. "Jesus! Maria!"
+
+I rose at last numbed and stiff. I looked again. The vision had
+departed. I was alone in my cell, and the rain was falling steadily
+outside. I groaned despairingly. Then I swayed, reeled sideways and lost
+all consciousness.
+
+When I awoke it was broad day, and the pale wintry sun shone silvery
+from a winter sky. I was very weak and very cold, and when I attempted
+to rise all things swam round me, and the floor of my cell appeared to
+heave like the deck of a ship upon a rolling sea.
+
+For days thereafter I was as a man entranced, alternately frozen with
+cold and burning with fever; and but that a shepherd who had turned
+aside to ask the hermit's blessing discovered me in that condition, and
+remained, out of his charity, for some three days to tend me, it is more
+than likely I should have died.
+
+He nourished me with the milk of goats, a luxury upon which my strength
+grew swiftly, and even after he had quitted my hut he still came daily
+for a week to visit me, and daily he insisted that I should consume the
+milk he brought me, overruling my protests that my need being overpast
+there was no longer the necessity to pamper me.
+
+Thereafter I knew a season of peace.
+
+It was, I then reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a
+masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned
+the contest. Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor
+glory in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse. I thanked
+Heaven for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of
+its protection for a vessel so weak.
+
+And now the hill-side and valley began to put on the raiment of a new
+year. February, like a benignant nymph, tripped down by meadow and
+stream, and touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And
+soon, where she had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones,
+scarlet, blue and purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of
+spring in their tender harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling
+nardosmia waved their incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted
+by the streams.
+
+Then as birch and beech and oak and chestnut put forth a garb of tender
+pallid green, March advanced and Easter came on apace.
+
+But the approach of Easter filled me with a staggering dread. It was in
+Passion Week that the miracle of the image that I guarded was wont to
+manifest itself. What if through my unworthiness it should fail? The
+fear appalled me, and I redoubled my prayers. There was need; for spring
+which touched the earth so benignly had not passed me by. And at moments
+certain longings for the world would stir in me again, and again would
+come those agonizing thoughts of Giuliana which I had conceived were for
+ever laid to rest, so that I sought refuge once more in the hair-shirt;
+and when this had once more lost its efficacy, I took long whip-like
+branches of tender eglantine to fashion a scourge with which I
+flagellated my naked body so that the thorns tore my flesh and set my
+rebellious blood to flow.
+
+One evening, at last, as I sat outside my hut, gazing over the rolling
+emerald uplands, I had my reward. I almost fainted when first I realized
+it in the extremity of my joy and thankfulness. Very faintly, just as I
+had heard it that night when first I came to the hermitage, I heard now
+the mystic, bell-like music that had guided my footsteps thither. Never
+since that night had the sound of it reached me, though often I had
+listened for it.
+
+It came now wafted down to me, it seemed, upon the evening breeze, a
+sound of angelic chimes infinitely ravishing to my senses, and stirring
+my heart to such an ecstasy of faith and happiness as I had never yet
+known since my coming thither.
+
+It was a sign--a sign of pardon, a sign of grace. It could be naught
+else. I fell upon my knees and rendered my deep and joyous thanks.
+
+And in all the week that followed that unearthly silver music was with
+me, infinitely soothing and solacing. I could wander afield, yet it
+never left me, unless I chanced to go so near the tumbling waters of
+the Bagnanza that their thunder drowned that other blessed sound. I took
+courage and confidence. Passion Week drew nigh; but it no longer had any
+terrors for me. I was adjudged worthy of the guardianship of the shrine.
+Yet I prayed, and made St. Sebastian the special object of my devotions,
+that he should not fail me.
+
+April came, as I learnt of the stray visitors who, of their charity,
+brought me the alms of bread, and the second day of it was the first of
+Holy Week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. INTRUDERS
+
+
+It was on Holy Thursday that the image usually began to bleed, and it
+would continue so to do until the dawn of Easter Sunday.
+
+Each day now, as the time drew nearer, I watched the image closely, and
+on the Wednesday I watched it with a dread anxiety I could not repress,
+for as yet there was no faintest sign. The brown streaks that marked
+the course of the last bleeding continued dry. All that night I prayed
+intently, in a torture of doubt, yet soothed a little by the gentle
+music that was never absent now.
+
+With the first glint of dawn I heard steps outside the hut; but I did
+not stir. By sunrise there was a murmur of voices like the muttering of
+a sea upon its shore. I rose and peered more closely at the saint. He
+was just wood, inanimate and insensible, and there was still no sign.
+Outside, I knew, a crowd of pilgrims was already gathered. They were
+waiting, poor souls. But what was their waiting compared with mine?
+
+Another hour I knelt there, still beseeching Heaven to take mercy
+upon me. But Heaven remained unresponsive and the wounds of the image
+continued dry.
+
+I rose, at last, in a sort of despair, and going to the door of the hut,
+I flung it wide.
+
+The platform was filled with a great crowd of peasantry, and an overflow
+poured down the sides of it and surged up the hill on the right and the
+left. At sight of me, so gaunt and worn, my eyes wild with despair and
+feverish from sleeplessness, a tangled growth of beard upon my hollow
+cheeks, they uttered as with one voice a great cry of awe. The multitude
+swayed and rippled, and then with a curious sound as that of a great
+wind, all went down upon their knees before me--all save the array of
+cripples huddled in the foreground, brought thither, poor wretches, in
+the hope of a miraculous healing.
+
+As I was looking round upon that assembly, my eyes were caught by a
+flash and glitter on the road above us leading to the Cisa Pass. A
+little troop of men-at-arms was descending that way. A score of them
+there would be, and from their lance-heads fluttered scarlet bannerols
+bearing a white device which at that distance I could not make out.
+
+The troop had halted, and one upon a great black horse, a man whose
+armour shone like the sun itself, was pointing down with his mail-clad
+hand. Then they began to move again, and the brightness of their armour,
+the fluttering pennons on their lances, stirred me strangely in that
+fleeting moment, ere I turned again to the faithful who knelt there
+waiting for my words. Dolefully, with hanging head and downcast eyes, I
+made the dread announcement.
+
+"My children, there is yet no miracle."
+
+A deathly stillness followed the words. Then came an uproar, a clamour,
+a wailing. One bold mountaineer thrust forward to the foremost ranks,
+though without rising from his knees.
+
+"Father," he cried, "how can that be? The saint has never failed to
+bleed by dawn on Holy Thursday, these five years past."
+
+"Alas!" I groaned, "I do not know. I but tell you what is. All night
+have I held vigil. But all has been vain. I will go pray again, and do
+you, too, pray."
+
+I dared not tell them of my growing suspicion and fear that the fault
+was in myself; that here was a sign of Heaven's displeasure at the
+impurity of the guardian of that holy place.
+
+"But the music!" cried one of the cripples raucously. "I hear the
+blessed music!"
+
+I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen. We all heard it
+pealing softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and a
+great cry went up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry that
+where one miracle was happening another must happen, that where the
+angelic choirs were singing all must be well.
+
+And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that I
+had seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage,
+having turned aside from the road. At the foot of the hillock upon which
+my hut was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
+
+I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to see
+what unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian.
+
+The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;
+then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight from
+it.
+
+All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon the
+bannerols was the head of a white horse. By that device I knew them.
+They were of the house of Cavalcanti--a house that had, as I had heard,
+been in alliance and great friendship with my father. But that their
+coming hither should have anything to do with me or with that friendship
+I was assured was impossible. Not a single soul could know of my
+whereabouts or the identity of the present hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+The pair advanced, leaving the troop below to await their return, and as
+they came I considered them, as did, too, the multitude.
+
+The man was of middle height, very broad and active, with long arms, to
+one of which the little lady clung for help up the steep path. He had a
+proud, stern aquiline face that was shaven, so that the straight lines
+of his strong mouth and powerful length of jaw looked as if chiselled
+out of stone. It was only at closer quarters that I observed how the
+general hardness of that countenance was softened by the kindliness of
+his deep brown eyes. In age I judged him to be forty, though in reality
+he was nearer fifty.
+
+The little lady at his side was the daintiest maid that I had ever
+seen. The skin, white as a water-lily, was very gently flushed upon her
+cheeks; the face was delicately oval; the little mouth, the tenderest
+in all the world; the forehead low and broad, and the slightly
+slanting eyes--when she raised the lashes that hung over them like long
+shadows--were of the deep blue of sapphires. Her dark brown hair was
+coifed in a jewelled net of thread of gold, and on her white neck a
+chain of emeralds sparkled sombrely. Her close-fitting robe and her
+mantle were of the hue of bronze, and the light shifted along the silken
+fabric as she moved, so that it gleamed like metal. About her waist
+there was a girdle of hammered gold, and pearls were sewn upon the back
+of her brown velvet gloves.
+
+One glance of her deep blue eyes she gave me as she approached; then she
+lowered them instantly, and so weak--so full of worldly vanities was I
+still that in that moment I took shame at the thought that she should
+see me thus, in this rough hermit's habit, my face a tangle of unshorn
+beard, my hair long and unkempt. And the shame of it dyed my gaunt
+cheeks. And then I turned pale again, for it seemed to me that out of
+nowhere a voice had asked me:
+
+"Do you still marvel that the image will not bleed?"
+
+So sharp and clear did those words arise from the lips of Conscience
+that it seemed to me as if they had been uttered aloud, and I looked
+almost in alarm to see if any other had overheard them.
+
+The cavalier was standing before me, and his brows were knit, a
+deep amazement in his eyes. Thus awhile in utter silence. Then quite
+suddenly, his voice a ringing challenge:
+
+"What is your name?" he said.
+
+"My name?" quoth I, astonished by such a question, and remarking now
+the intentness and surprise of his own glance. "It is Sebastian," I
+answered, and truthfully, for that was the name of my adoption, the name
+I had taken when I entered upon my hermitage.
+
+"Sebastian of what and where?" quoth he.
+
+He stood before me, his back to the peasant crowd, ignoring them as
+completely as if they had no existence, supremely master of himself. And
+meanwhile, the little lady on his arm stole furtive upward glances at
+me.
+
+"Sebastian of nowhere," I answered. "Sebastian the hermit, the guardian
+of this shrine. If you are come to..."
+
+"What was your name in the world?" he interrupted impatiently, and all
+the time his eyes were devouring my gaunt face.
+
+"The name of a sinner," answered I. "I have stripped it off and cast it
+from me."
+
+An expression of impatience rippled across the white face
+
+"But the name of your father?" he insisted.
+
+"I have none," answered I. "I have no kin or ties of any sort. I am
+Sebastian the hermit."
+
+His lips smacked testily. "Were you baptized Sebastian?" he inquired.
+
+"No," I answered him. "I took the name when I became the guardian of
+this shrine."
+
+"And when was that?"
+
+"In September of last year, when the holy man who was here before me
+died."
+
+I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips.
+He leaned towards me. "Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?" he
+inquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.
+
+But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me by
+surprise. I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member
+of the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so
+intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced,
+moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the
+sight of that crowd of pilgrims.
+
+"Sir," I said, "I know not your intentions; but in all humility let me
+say that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import. The world
+has done with me, and I with the world. So that unless you are come
+hither out of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with God
+and molest me no further. You come at a singularly inauspicious time,
+when I need all my strength to forget the world and my sinful past, that
+through me the will of Heaven may be done here."
+
+I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of great
+compassion and sweetness whilst I spoke. I observed the pressure which
+she put on his arm. Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was the
+sad firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say. But he
+nodded shortly.
+
+"Well, well!" he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, the
+little lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which the
+crowd opened out for him.
+
+That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives of
+piety, they very plainly signified. They feared that the intrusion at
+such a time of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficulties
+against the performance of the expected miracle.
+
+Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted and
+questioned one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage. I did not
+hear the peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenly
+thrown up, and I caught his next question:
+
+"When did it last bleed?"
+
+Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice--"That would be
+before this young hermit came? And to-day it will not bleed, you say?"
+
+He flashed me a last keen glance of his eyes, which had grown narrow and
+seemed laden with mockery. The little lady whispered something to him,
+in answer to which he laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Fool's mummery," he snapped, and drew her on, she going, it seemed to
+me, reluctantly.
+
+But the crowd had heard him and the insult offered to the shrine. A
+deep-throated bay rose up in menace, and some leapt to their feet as if
+they would attack him.
+
+He checked, and wheeled at the sound. "How now?" he cried, his voice a
+trumpet-call, his eyes flashing terribly upon them; and as dogs crouch
+to heel at the angry bidding of their master, the multitude grew silent
+and afraid under the eyes of that single steel-clad man.
+
+He laughed a deep-throated laugh, and strode down the hill with his
+little lady on his arm.
+
+But when he had mounted and was riding off, the crowd, recovering
+courage from his remoteness, hurled its curses after him and shrilly
+branded him, "Derider!" and "Blasphemer!"
+
+He rode contemptuously amain, however, looking back but once, and then
+to laugh at them.
+
+Soon he had dipped out of sight, and of his company nothing was visible
+but the fluttering red pennons with the device of the white horse-head.
+Gradually these also sank and vanished, and once more I was alone with
+the crowd of pilgrims.
+
+Enjoining prayer upon them again, I turned and re-entered the hut.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE VISION
+
+
+Pray as we might, night came and still the image gave no sign. The crowd
+melted away, with promises to return at dawn--promises that sounded
+almost like a menace in my ears.
+
+I was alone once more, alone with my thoughts and these made sport of
+me. It was not only upon the unresponsiveness of St. Sebastian that my
+mind now dwelt, nor yet upon the horrid dread that this unresponsiveness
+might be a sign of Heaven's displeasure, an indication that as a
+custodian of that shrine I was unacceptable through the mire of sin
+that still clung to me. Rather, my thoughts went straying down the
+mountain-side in the wake of that gallant company, that stern-faced man
+and that gentle-eyed little lady who had hung upon his arm. Before the
+eyes of my mind there flashed again the brilliance of their arms, in my
+ears rang the thunder of their chargers' hooves, whilst the image of the
+girl in her shimmering, bronze-hued robe remained insistently.
+
+Theirs the life that should have been mine! She such a companion as
+should have shared my life and borne me children of my own. And I would
+burn with shame again in memory, as I had burnt in actual fact, to think
+that she should have beheld me in so unkempt and bedraggled a condition.
+
+How must I compare in her eyes with the gay courtiers who would daily
+hover in her presence and hang upon her gentle speech? What thought of
+me could I hope should ever abide with her, as the image of her abode
+with me? Or, if she thought of me at all, she must think of me just as
+a poor hermit, a man who had donned the anchorite's sackcloth and turned
+his back upon a world that for him was empty.
+
+It is very easy for you worldly ones who read, to conjecture what had
+befallen me. I was enamoured. In a meeting of eyes had the thing come to
+me. And you will say that it is little marvel, considering the seclusion
+of all my life and particularly that of the past few months, that the
+first sweet maid I beheld should have wrought such havoc, and conquered
+my heart by the mere flicker of her lashes.
+
+Yet so much I cannot grant your shrewdness.
+
+That meeting was predestined. It was written that she should come and
+tear the foolish bandage from my eyes, allowing me to see for myself
+that, as Fra Gervasio had opined, my vocation was neither for hermitage
+nor cloister; that what called me was the world; and that in the world
+must I find salvation since I was needed for the world's work.
+
+And none but she could have done that. Of this I am persuaded, as you
+shall be when you have read on.
+
+The yearnings with which she filled my soul were very different from
+those inspired by the memory of Giuliana. That other sinful longing,
+she entirely effaced at last, thereby achieving something that had been
+impossible to prayers and fasting, to scourge and cilice. I longed for
+her almost beatifically, as those whose natures are truly saintly long
+for the presence of the blessed ones of Heaven. By the sight of her I
+was purified and sanctified, washed clean of all that murk of sinful
+desire in which I had lain despite myself; for my desire of her was the
+blessed, noble desire to serve, to guard, to cherish.
+
+Pure was she as the pale narcissus by the streams, and serving her what
+could I be but pure?
+
+And then, quite suddenly, upon the heels of such thoughts came the
+reaction. Horror and revulsion were upon me. This was but a fresh
+snare of Satan's baiting to lure me to destruction. Where the memory
+of Giuliana had failed to move me to aught but penance and increasing
+rigours, the foul fiend sought to engage me with a seeming purity to my
+ultimate destruction. Thus had Anthony, the Egyptian monk, been tempted;
+and under one guise or another it was ever the same Circean lure.
+
+I would make an end. I swore it in a mighty frenzy of repentance, in a
+very lust to do battle with Satan and with my own flesh and a phrenetic
+joy to engage in the awful combat.
+
+I stripped off my ragged habit, and standing naked I took up my scourge
+of eglantine and beat myself until the blood flowed freely. But that was
+not enough. All naked as I was, I went forth into the blue night, and
+ran to a pool of the Bagnanza, going of intent through thickets of
+bramble and briar-rose that gripped and tore my flesh and lacerated me
+so that at times I screamed aloud in pain, to laugh ecstatically the
+next moment and joyfully taunt Satan with his defeat.
+
+Thus I tore on, my very body ragged and bleeding from head to foot, and
+thus I came to the pool in the torrent's course. Into this I plunged,
+and stood with the icy waters almost to my neck, to purge the unholy
+fevers out of me. The snows above were melting at the time, and the pool
+was little more than liquid ice. The chill of it struck through me to
+the very marrow, and I felt my flesh creep and contract until it seemed
+like the rough hide of some fabled monster, and my wounds stung as if
+fire were being poured into them.
+
+Thus awhile; then all feeling passed, and a complete insensibility
+to the cold of the water or the fire of the wounds succeeded. All was
+numbed, and every nerve asleep. At last I had conquered. I laughed
+aloud, and in a great voice of triumph I shouted so that the shout went
+echoing round the hills in the stillness of the night:
+
+"Satan, thou art defeated!"
+
+And upon that I crawled up the mossy bank, the water gliding from my
+long limbs. I attempted to stand. But the earth rocked under my feet;
+the blueness of the night deepened into black, and consciousness was
+extinguished like a candle that is blown out.
+
+    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+
+She appeared above me in a great effulgence that emanated from herself
+as if she were grown luminous. Her robe was of cloth of silver and of
+a dazzling sheen, and it hung closely to her lissom, virginal form,
+defining every line and curve of it; and by the chaste beauty of her I
+was moved to purest ecstasy of awe and worship.
+
+The pale, oval face was infinitely sweet, the slanting eyes of heavenly
+blue were infinitely tender, the brown hair was plaited into two long
+tresses that hung forward upon either breast and were entwined with
+threads of gold and shimmering jewels. On the pale brow a brilliant
+glowed with pure white fires, and her hands were held out to me in
+welcome.
+
+Her lips parted to breathe my name.
+
+"Agostino d'Anguissola!" There were whole tomes of tender meaning in
+those syllables, so that hearing her utter them I seemed to learn all
+that was in her heart.
+
+And then her shining whiteness suggested to me the name that must be
+hers.
+
+"Bianca!" I cried, and in my turn held out my arms and made as if to
+advance towards her. But I was held back in icy, clinging bonds, whose
+relentlessness drew from me a groan of misery.
+
+"Agostino, I am waiting for you at Pagliano," she said, and it did not
+occur to me to wonder where might be this Pagliano of which I could not
+remember ever to have heard. "Come to me soon."
+
+"I may not come," I answered miserably. "I am an anchorite, the guardian
+of a shrine; and my life that has been full of sin must be given
+henceforth to expiation. It is the will of Heaven."
+
+She smiled all undismayed, smiled confidently and tenderly.
+
+"Presumptuous!" she gently chid me. "What know you of the will of
+Heaven? The will of Heaven is inscrutable. If you have sinned in
+the world, in the world must you atone by deeds that shall serve the
+world--God's world. In your hermitage you are become barren soil that
+will yield naught to yourself or any. Come then from the wilderness.
+Come soon! I am waiting!"
+
+And on that the splendid vision faded, and utter darkness once more
+encompassed me, a darkness through which still boomed repeatedly the
+fading echo of the words:
+
+"Come soon! I am waiting!"
+
+       .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+
+I lay upon my bed of wattles in the hut, and through the little unglazed
+windows the sun was pouring, but the dripping eaves told of rain that
+had lately ceased.
+
+Over me was bending a kindly faced old man in whom I recognized the good
+priest of Casi.
+
+I lay quite still for a long while, just gazing up at him. Soon my
+memory got to work of its own accord, and I bethought me of the pilgrims
+who must by now have come and who must be impatiently awaiting news.
+
+How came I to have slept so long? Vaguely I remembered my last night's
+penance, and then came a black gulf in my memory, a gap I could not
+bridge. But uppermost leapt the anxieties concerning the image of St.
+Sebastian.
+
+I struggled up to discover that I was very weak; so weak that I was glad
+to sink back again.
+
+"Does it bleed? Does it bleed yet?" I asked, and my voice was so small
+and feeble that the sound of it startled me.
+
+The old priest shook his head, and his eyes were very full of
+compassion.
+
+"Poor youth, poor youth!" he sighed.
+
+Without all was silent; there was no such rustle of a multitude as I
+listened for. And then I observed in my cell a little shepherd-lad who
+had been wont to come that way for my blessing upon occasions. He was
+half naked, as lithe as a snake and almost as brown. What did he there?
+And then someone else stirred--an elderly peasant-woman with a wrinkled
+kindly face and soft dark eyes, whom I did not know at all.
+
+Somehow, as my mind grew clearer, last night seemed ages remote. I
+looked at the priest again.
+
+"Father," I murmured, "what has happened?"
+
+His answer amazed me. He started violently. Looked more closely, and
+suddenly cried out:
+
+"He knows me! He knows me! Deo gratias!" And he fell upon his knees
+
+Now here it seemed to me was a sort of madness. "Why should I not know
+you?" quoth I.
+
+The old woman peered at me. "Ay, blessed be Heaven! He is awake at
+last, and himself again." She turned to the lad, who was staring at me,
+grinning. "Go tell them, Beppo! Haste!"
+
+"Tell them?" I cried. "The pilgrims? Ah, no, no--not unless the miracle
+has come to pass!"
+
+"There are no pilgrims here, my son," said the priest.
+
+"Not?" I cried, and cold horror descended upon me. "But they should have
+come. This is Holy Friday, father."
+
+"Nay, my son, Holy Friday was a fortnight ago."
+
+I stared askance at him, in utter silence. Then I smiled half
+tolerantly. "But father, yesterday they were all here. Yesterday was..."
+
+"Your yesterday, my son, is sped these fifteen days," he answered. "All
+that long while, since the night you wrestled with the Devil, you have
+lain exhausted by that awful combat, lying there betwixt life and death.
+All that time we have watched by you, Leocadia here and I and the lad
+Beppo."
+
+Now here was news that left me speechless for some little while. My
+amazement and slow understanding were spurred on by a sight of my hands
+lying on the rude coverlet which had been flung over me. Emaciated they
+had been for some months now. But at present they were as white as
+snow and almost as translucent in their extraordinary frailty. I became
+increasingly conscious, too, of the great weakness of my body and the
+great lassitude that filled me.
+
+"Have I had the fever?" I asked him presently.
+
+"Ay, my son. And who would not? Blessed Virgin! who would not after what
+you underwent?"
+
+And now he poured into my astonished ears the amazing story that had
+overrun the country-side. It would seem that my cry in the night, my
+exultant cry to Satan that I had defeated him, had been overheard by
+a goatherd who guarded his flock in the hills. In the stillness he
+distinctly heard the words that I had uttered, and he came trembling
+down, drawn by a sort of pious curiosity to the spot whence it had
+seemed to him that the cry had proceeded.
+
+And there by a pool of the Bagnanza he had found me lying prone, my
+white body glistening like marble and almost as cold. Recognizing in me
+the anchorite of Monte Orsaro, he had taken me up in his strong arms
+and had carried me back to my hut. There he had set about reviving me by
+friction and by forcing between my teeth some of the grape-spirit that
+he carried in a gourd.
+
+Finding that I lived, but that he could not arouse me and that my icy
+coldness was succeeded by the fire of fever, he had covered me with my
+habit and his own cloak, and had gone down to Casi to fetch the priest
+and relate his story.
+
+This story was no less than that the hermit of Monte Orsaro had been
+fighting with the devil, who had dragged him naked from his hut and had
+sought to hurl him into the torrent; but that on the very edge of
+the river the anchorite had found strength, by the grace of God, to
+overthrow the tormentor and to render him powerless; and in proof of
+it there was my body all covered with Satan's claw-marks by which I had
+been torn most cruelly.
+
+The priest had come at once, bringing with him such restoratives as he
+needed, and it is a thousand mercies that he did not bring a leech, or
+else I might have been bled of the last drops remaining in my shrunken
+veins.
+
+And meanwhile the goatherd's story had gone abroad. By morning it was on
+the lips of all the country-side, so that explanations were not lacking
+to account for St. Sebastian's refusal to perform the usual miracle, and
+no miracle was expected--nor had the image yielded any.
+
+The priest was mistaken. A miracle there had been. But for what had
+chanced, the multitude must have come again confidently expecting the
+bleeding of the image which had never failed in five years, and had the
+image not bled it must have fared ill with the guardian of the
+shrine. In punishment for his sacrilegious ministry which must be held
+responsible for the absence of the miracle they so eagerly awaited, well
+might the crowd have torn me limb from limb.
+
+Next the old man went on to tell me how three days ago there had come to
+the hermitage a little troop of men-at-arms, led by a tall, bearded man
+whose device was a sable band upon an argent field, and accompanied by a
+friar of the order of St. Francis, a tall, gaunt fellow who had wept at
+sight of me.
+
+"That would be Fra Gervasio!" I exclaimed. "How came he to discover me?"
+
+"Yes--Fra Gervasio is his name," replied the priest.
+
+"Where is he now?" I asked.
+
+"I think he is here."
+
+In that moment I caught the sound of approaching steps. The door opened,
+and before me stood the tall figure of my best friend, his eyes all
+eagerness, his pale face flushed with joyous excitement.
+
+I smiled my welcome.
+
+"Agostino! Agostino!" he cried, and ran to kneel beside me and take my
+hand in his. "O, blessed be God!" he murmured.
+
+In the doorway stood now another man, who had followed him--one whose
+face I had seen somewhere yet could not at first remember where. He was
+very tall, so that he was forced to stoop to avoid the lintel of the low
+door--as tall as Gervasio or myself--and the tanned face was bearded by
+a heavy brown beard in which a few strands of grey were showing. Across
+his face there ran the hideous livid scar of a blow that must have
+crushed the bridge of his nose. It began just under the left eye, and
+crossed the face downwards until it was lost in the beard on the
+right side almost in line with the mouth. Yet, notwithstanding that
+disfigurement, he still possessed a certain beauty, and the deep-set,
+clear, grey-blue eyes were the eyes of a brave and kindly man.
+
+He wore a leather jerkin and great thigh-boots of grey leather, and from
+his girdle of hammered steel hung a dagger and the empty carriages of a
+sword. His cropped black head was bare, and in his hand he carried a cap
+of black velvet.
+
+We looked at each other awhile, and his eyes were sad and wistful, laden
+with pity, as I thought, for my condition. Then he moved forward with a
+creak of leather and jingle of spurs that made pleasant music.
+
+He set a hand upon the shoulder of the kneeling Gervasio.
+
+"He will live now, Gervasio?" he asked.
+
+"O, he will live," answered the friar with an almost fierce satisfaction
+in his positive assurance. "He will live and in a week we can move him
+hence. Meanwhile he must be nourished." He rose. "My good Leocadia, have
+you the broth? Come, then, let us build up this strength of his. There
+is haste, good soul; great haste!" She bustled at his bidding, and soon
+outside the door there was a crackling of twigs to announce the lighting
+of a fire. And then Gervasio made known to me the stranger.
+
+"This is Galeotto," he said. "He was your father's friend, and would be
+yours."
+
+"Sir," said I, "I could not desire otherwise with any who was my
+father's friend. You are not, perchance, the Gran Galeotto?" I inquired,
+remembering the sable device on argent of which the priest had told me.
+
+"I am that same," he answered, and I looked with interest upon one whose
+name had been ringing through Italy these last few years. And then, I
+suddenly realized why his face was familiar to me. This was the man who
+in a monkish robe had stared so insistently at me that day at Mondolfo
+five years ago.
+
+He was a sort of outlaw, a remnant of the days of chivalry and
+free-lances, whose sword was at the disposal of any purchaser. He rode
+at the head of a last fragment of the famous company that Giovanni de'
+Medici had raised and captained until his death. The sable band which
+they adopted in mourning for that warrior, earned for their founder the
+posthumous title of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.
+
+He was called Il Gran Galeotto (as another was called Il Gran Diavolo)
+in play upon the name he bore and the life he followed. He had been in
+bad odour with the Pope for his sometime association with my father, and
+he was not well-viewed in the Pontifical domains until, as I was soon
+to learn, he had patched up a sort of peace with Pier Luigi Farnese,
+who thought that the day might come when he should need the support of
+Galeotto's free-lances.
+
+"I was," he said, "your father's closest friend. I took this at Perugia,
+where he fell," he added, and pointed to his terrific scar. Then he
+laughed. "I wear it gladly in memory of him."
+
+He turned to Gervasio, smiling. "I hope that Giovanni d'Anguissola's son
+will hold me in some affection for his father's sake, when he shall come
+to know me better."
+
+"Sir," I said, "from my heart I thank you for that pious, kindly
+wish; and I would that I might fully correspond to it. But Agostino
+d'Anguissola, who has been so near to death in the body, is, indeed,
+dead to the world already. Here you see but a poor hermit named
+Sebastian, who is the guardian of this shrine."
+
+Gervasio rose suddenly. "This shrine..." he began in a fierce voice,
+his face inflamed as with sudden wrath. And there he stopped short. The
+priest was staring at him, and through the open door came Leocadia with
+a bowl of steaming broth. "We'll talk of this again," he said, and there
+was a sort of thunder rumbling in the promise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+It was a week later before we returned to the subject.
+
+Meanwhile, the good priest of Casi and Leocadia had departed, bearing
+with them a princely reward from the silent, kindly eyed Galeotto.
+
+To tend me there remained only the boy Beppo; and after my long six
+months of lenten fare there followed now a period of feasting that began
+to trouble me as my strength returned. When, finally, on the seventh
+day, I was able to stand, and, by leaning on Gervasio's arm, to reach
+the door of the hut and to look out upon the sweet spring landscape and
+the green tents that Galeotto's followers had pitched for themselves in
+the dell below my platform, I vowed that I would make an end of broths
+and capons' breasts and trout and white bread and red wine and all such
+succulences.
+
+But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
+
+"There has been enough of this, Agostino," said he. "You have gone
+near your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had been
+damned--deserving it for your folly if for naught else."
+
+I looked at him with surprise and reproach. "How, Fra Gervasio?" I said.
+
+"How?" he answered. "Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales of
+fights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's claws
+upon your body? Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foul
+impostures of this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth of
+the country-side?"
+
+"Foul impostures?" I echoed, aghast. "Fra Gervasio, your words are
+sacrilege."
+
+"Sacrilege?" he cried, and laughed bitterly. "Sacrilege? And what of
+that?" And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.
+Sebastian in its niche.
+
+"You think because it did not bleed..." I began.
+
+"It did not bleed," he cut in, "because you are not a knave. That is the
+only reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue.
+He was no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy
+things, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black
+villain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when
+the end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money
+that he had extorted by his simonies."
+
+"My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
+
+"Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?" he asked
+me sharply. "Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath
+that you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and
+had vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away to
+realms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said."
+
+Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door
+to do the office of a stool.
+
+"But he gave alms!" I cried, my senses all bewildered.
+
+"Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image--" his scorn
+became tremendous--"is an impious fraud, Agostino."
+
+Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man
+be so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that
+without fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
+
+I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
+
+"Your notions of God are heathen notions," he said more quietly.
+"You confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His
+lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet--reflect! Consider the
+manner in which that brigand met his death."
+
+"But... but..." I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short,
+and listened. "Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?"
+
+"Hear it? Hear what?"
+
+"The music--the angelic melodies! And you can say that this place is
+a foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud! And you a priest!
+Listen! It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief."
+
+He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.
+
+"Angelic melodies!" he echoed with gentlest scorn. "By what snares does
+the Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose!
+That, boy--that is no more than the dripping of water into little wells
+of different depths, producing different notes. It is in there, in some
+cave in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth."
+
+I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that my
+senses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion. "The proof of that?
+The proof!" I cried.
+
+"The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or while
+the river was swollen."
+
+That answer shattered my last illusion. I looked back upon the time
+I had spent there, upon the despair that had beset me when the music
+ceased, upon the joy that had been mine when again I heard it,
+accepting it always as a sign of grace. And it was as he said. Not my
+unworthiness, but the rain, had ever silenced it. In memory I ran over
+the occasions, and so clearly did I perceive the truth of this, that I
+marvelled the coincidence should not earlier have discovered it to me.
+
+Moreover, now that my illusions concerning it were gone, the sound was
+clearly no more than he had said. I recognized its nature. It might have
+intrigued a sane man for a day or a night. But it could never longer
+have deceived any but one whose mind was become fevered with fanatic
+ecstasy.
+
+Then I looked again at the image in the niche, and the pendulum of my
+faith was suddenly checked in its counter-swing. About that image there
+could be no delusions. The whole country-side had witnessed the miracle
+of the bleeding, and it had wrought cures, wondrous cures, among the
+faithful. They could not all have been deceived. Besides, from the
+wounds in the breast there were still the brown signs of the last
+manifestation.
+
+But when I had given some utterance to these thoughts Gervasio for only
+answer stooped and picked up a wood-man's axe that stood against the
+wall. With this he went straight towards the image.
+
+"Fra Gervasio!" I cried, leaping to my feet, a premonition of what he
+was about turning me cold with horror. "Stay!" I almost screamed.
+
+But too late. My answer was a crashing blow. The next instant, as I sank
+back to my seat and covered my face, the two halves of the image fell at
+my feet, flung there by the friar.
+
+"Look!" he bade me in a roar.
+
+Fearfully I looked. I saw. And yet I could not believe.
+
+He came quickly back, and picked up the two halves. "The oracle of
+Delphi was not more impudently worked," he said. "Observe this sponge,
+these plates of metal that close down upon it and exert the pressure
+necessary to send the liquid with which it is laden oozing forth." As he
+spoke he tore out the fiendish mechanism. "And see now how ingeniously
+it was made to work--by pressure upon this arrow in the flank."
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the door. I looked up, startled, to
+find Galeotto standing at my elbow. So engrossed had I been that I had
+never heard his soft approach over the turf.
+
+"Body of Bacchus!" said he. "Here is Gervasio become an image breaker to
+some purpose. What now of your miraculous saint, Agostino?"
+
+My answer was first a groan over my shattered illusion, and then a
+deep-throated curse at the folly that had made a mock of me.
+
+The friar set a hand upon my shoulder. "You see, Agostino, that your
+excursions into holy things do not promise well. Away with you, boy! Off
+with this hypocrite robe, and get you out into the world to do useful
+work for God and man. Had your heart truly called you to the priesthood,
+I had been the first to have guided your steps thither. But your mind
+upon such matters has been warped, and your views are all false; you
+confound mysticism with true religion, and mouldering in a hermitage
+with the service of God. How can you serve God here? Is not the world
+God's world that you must shun it as if the Devil had fashioned it? Go,
+I say--and I say it with the authority of the orders that I bear--go and
+serve man, and thus shall you best serve God. All else are but snares to
+such a nature as yours."
+
+I looked at him helplessly, and from him to Galeotto who stood there,
+his black brows knit; watching me with intentness as if great issues
+hung upon my answer. And Gervasio's words touched in my mind some chord
+of memory. They were words that I had heard before--or something very
+like them, something whose import was the same.
+
+Then I groaned miserably and took my head in my hands. "Whither am I
+to go?" I cried. "What place is there in all the world for me? I am an
+outcast. My very home is held against me. Whither, then, shall I go?"
+
+"If that is all that troubles you," said Galeotto, his tone unctuously
+humorous, "why we will ride to Pagliano."
+
+I leapt at the word--literally leapt to my feet, and stared at him with
+blazing eyes.
+
+"Why, what ails him now?" quoth he.
+
+Well might he ask. That name--Pagliano--had stirred my memory so
+violently, that of a sudden as in a flash I had seen again the strange
+vision that visited my delirium; I had seen again the inviting eyes,
+the beckoning hands, and heard again the gentle voice saying, "Come to
+Pagliano! Come soon!"
+
+And now I knew, too, where I had heard words urging my return to the
+world that were of the same import as those which Gervasio used.
+
+What magic was there here? What wizardry was at play? I knew--for they
+had told me--that it had been that cavalier who had visited me, that man
+whose name was Ettore de' Cavalcanti, who had borne news to them of one
+who was strangely like what Giovanni d'Anguissola had been. But Pagliano
+had never yet been mentioned.
+
+"Where is Pagliano?" I asked.
+
+"In Lombardy--in the Milanes," replied Galeotto.
+
+"It is the home of Cavalcanti."
+
+"You are faint, Agostino," cried Gervasio, with a sudden solicitude, and
+put an arm about my shoulders as I staggered.
+
+"No, no," said I. "It is nothing. Tell me--" And I paused almost afraid
+to put the question, lest the answer should dash my sudden hope. For it
+seemed to me that in this place of false miracles, one true miracle at
+least had been wrought; if it should be proved so indeed, then would
+I accept it as a sign that my salvation lay indeed in the world. If
+not...
+
+"Tell me," I began again; "this Cavalcanti has a daughter. She was with
+him upon that day when he came here. What is her name?"
+
+Galeotto looked at me out of narrowing eyes.
+
+"Why, what has that to do with anything?" quoth Gervasio.
+
+"More than you think. Answer me, then. What is her name?"
+
+"Her name is Bianca," said Caleotto.
+
+Something within me seemed to give way, so that I fell to laughing
+foolishly as women laugh who are on the verge of tears. By an effort I
+regained my self-control.
+
+"It is very well," I said. "I will ride with you to Pagliano."
+
+Both stared at me in utter amazement at the suddenness of my consent
+following upon information that, in their minds, could have no possible
+bearing upon the matter at issue.
+
+"Is he quite sane, do you think?" cried Galeotto gruffly.
+
+"I think he has just become so," said Fra Gervasio after a pause.
+
+"God give me patience, then," grumbled the soldier, and left me puzzled
+by the words.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV. THE WORLD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. PAGLIANO
+
+
+The lilac was in bloom when we came to the grey walls of Pagliano in
+that May of '45, and its scent, arousing the memory of my return to the
+world, has ever since been to me symbolical of the world itself.
+
+Mine was no half-hearted, backward-glancing return. Having determined
+upon the step, I took it resolutely and completely at a single stride.
+Since Galeotto placed his resources at my disposal, to be repaid him
+later when I should have entered upon the enjoyment of my heritage of
+Mondolfo, I did not scruple to draw upon them for my needs.
+
+I accepted the fine linen and noble raiment that he offered, and I took
+pleasure in the brave appearance that I made in them, my face shorn
+now of its beard and my hair trimmed to a proper length. Similarly I
+accepted weapons, money, and a horse; and thus equipped, looking for the
+first time in my life like a patrician of my own lofty station, I rode
+forth from Monte Orsaro with Galeotto and Gervasio, attended by the
+former's troop of twenty lances.
+
+And from the moment of our setting out there came upon me a curious
+peace, a happiness and a great sense of expectancy. No longer was
+I oppressed by the fear of proving unworthy of the life which I had
+chosen--as had been the case when that life had been monastic.
+
+Galeotto was in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with
+pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of
+my father ere all was done.
+
+The first act of my new life was performed as we were passing through
+the village of Pojetta.
+
+I called a halt before the doors of that mean hostelry, over which hung
+what no doubt would still be the same withered bunch of rosemary that
+had been there in autumn when last I went that way.
+
+To the sloe-eyed, deep-bosomed girl who lounged against the door-post to
+see so fine a company ride by, I gave an order to fetch the taverner.
+He came with a slouch, a bent back, and humble, timid eyes--a very
+different attitude from that which he had last adopted towards me.
+
+"Where is my mule, you rogue?" quoth I.
+
+He looked at me askance. "Your mule, magnificent? said he.
+
+"You have forgotten me, I think--forgotten the lad in rusty black who
+rode this way last autumn and whom you robbed."
+
+At the words be turned a sickly yellow, and fell to trembling and
+babbling protestations and excuses.
+
+"Have done," I broke in. "You would not buy the mule then. You shall buy
+it now, and pay for it with interest."
+
+"What is this, Agostino?" quoth Galeotto at my elbow. "An act of
+justice, sir," I answered shortly, whereupon he questioned me no
+further, but looked on with a grim smile. Then to the taverner, "Your
+manners to-day are not quite the same as on the last occasion when we
+met. I spare you the gallows that you may live to profit by the lesson
+of your present near escape. And now, rogue, ten ducats for that mule."
+And I held out my hand.
+
+"Ten ducats!" he cried, and gathering courage perhaps since he was not
+to hang. "It is twice the value of the beast," he protested.
+
+"I know," I said. "It will be five ducats for the mule, and five for
+your life. I am merciful to rate the latter as cheaply as it deserves.
+Come, thief, the ten ducats without more ado, or I'll burn your nest of
+infamy and hang you above the ruins."
+
+He cowered and shrivelled. Then he scuttled within doors to fetch the
+money, whilst Galeotto laughed deep in his throat.
+
+"You are well-advised," said I, when the rogue returned and handed me
+the ducats. "I told you I should come back to present my reckoning. Be
+warned by this."
+
+As we rode on Galeotto laughed again. "Body of Satan! There is a
+thoroughness about you, Agustino. As a hermit you did not spare
+yourself; and now as a tyrant you do not seem likely to spare others."
+
+"It is the Anguissola way," said Gervasio quietly.
+
+"You mistake," said I. "I conceive myself in the world for some good
+purpose, and the act you have witnessed is a part of it. It was not a
+revengeful deed. Vengeance would have taken a harsher course. It was
+justice, and justice is righteous."
+
+"Particularly a justice that puts ten ducats in your pocket," laughed
+Galeotto.
+
+"There, again, you mistake me," said I. "My aim is that thieves be
+mulcted to the end that the poor shall profit." And I drew rein again.
+
+A little crowd had gathered about us, mostly of very ragged, half-clad
+people, for this village of Pojetta was a very poverty-stricken place.
+Into that little crowd I flung the ten ducats--with the consequence
+that on the instant it became a seething, howling, snarling, quarrelling
+mass. In the twinkling of an eye a couple of heads were cracked and
+blood was flowing, so that to quell the riot my charity had provoked, I
+was forced to spur my horse forward and bid them with threats disperse.
+
+"And I think now," said Galeotto when it was done, "that you are just as
+reckless in the manner of doing charity. For the future, Agostino, you
+would do well to appoint an almoner."
+
+I bit my lip in vexation; but soon I smiled again. Were such little
+things to fret me? Did we not ride to Pagliano and to Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti? At the very thought my pulses would quicken, and a sweetness
+of anticipation would invade my soul, to be clouded at moments by an
+indefinable dread.
+
+And thus we came to Pagliano in that month of May, when the lilac was in
+bloom, as I have said, and after Fra Gervasio had left us, to return to
+his convent at Piacenza.
+
+We were received in the courtyard of that mighty fortress by that
+sturdy, hawk-faced man who had recognized me in the hermitage on Monte
+Orsaro. But he was no longer in armour. He wore a surcoat of yellow
+velvet, and his eyes were very kindly and affectionate when they rested
+on Galeotto and from Galeotto passed on to take survey of me.
+
+"So this is our hermit!" quoth he, a note of some surprise in his crisp
+tones. "Somewhat changed!"
+
+"By a change that goes deeper than his pretty doublet," said Galeotto.
+
+We dismounted, and grooms, in the Cavalcanti livery of scarlet with
+the horse-head in white upon their breasts, led away our horses. The
+seneschal acted as quarter-master to our lances, whilst Cavalcanti
+himself led us up the great stone staircase with its carved balustrade
+of marble, from which rose a file of pillars to support the groined
+ceiling. This last was frescoed in dull red with the white horse-head
+at intervals. On our right, on every third step, stood orange-trees in
+tubs, all flowering and shedding the most fragrant perfume.
+
+Thus we ascended to a spacious gallery, and through a succession of
+magnificent rooms we came to the noble apartments that had been made
+ready for us.
+
+A couple of pages came to tend me, bringing perfumed water and macerated
+herbs for my ablutions. These performed, they helped me into fresh
+garments that awaited me--black hose of finest silk and velvet trunks
+of the same sable hue, and for my body a fine close-fitting doublet of
+cloth of gold, caught at the waist by a jewelled girdle from which hung
+a dagger that was the merest toy.
+
+When I was ready they went before me, to lead the way to what they
+called the private dining-room, where supper awaited us. At the very
+mention of a private dining-room I had a vision of whitewashed walls and
+high-set windows and a floor strewn with rushes. Instead we came into
+the most beautiful chamber that I had ever seen. From floor to ceiling
+it was hung with arras of purple brocade alternating with cloth of gold;
+thus on three sides. On the fourth there was an opening for the embayed
+window which glowed like a gigantic sapphire in the deepening twilight.
+
+The floor was spread with a carpet of the ruddy purple of porphyry, very
+soft and silent to the feet. From the frescoed ceiling, where a joyous
+Phoebus drove a team of spirited white stallions, hung a chain that
+was carved in the semblance of interlocked Titans to support a great
+candelabrum, each branch of which was in the image of a Titan holding
+a stout candle of scented wax. It was all in gilded bronze and the
+workmanship--as I was presently to learn--of that great artist and rogue
+Benvenuto Cellini. From this candelabrum there fell upon the board a
+soft golden radiance that struck bright gleams from crystals and plate
+of gold and silver.
+
+By a buffet laden with meats stood the master of the household in black
+velvet, his chain of office richly carved, his badge a horse's head in
+silver, and he was flanked on either hand by a nimble-looking page.
+
+Of all this my first glance gathered but the most fleeting of
+impressions. For my eyes were instantly arrested by her who stood
+between Cavalcanti and Galeotto, awaiting my arrival. And, miracle of
+miracles, she was arrayed exactly as I had seen her in my vision.
+
+Her supple maiden body was sheathed in a gown of cloth of silver; her
+brown hair was dressed into two plaits interlaced with gold threads and
+set with tiny gems, and these plaits hung one on either breast. Upon the
+low, white brow a single jewel gleamed--a brilliant of the very whitest
+fire.
+
+Her long blue eyes were raised to look at me as I entered, and their
+glance grew startled when it encountered mine, the delicate colour
+faded gradually from her cheeks, and her eyes fell at last as she moved
+forward to bid me welcome to Pagliano in her own name.
+
+They must have perceived her emotion as they perceived mine. But they
+gave no sign. We got to the round table--myself upon Cavalcanti's left,
+Galeotto in the place of honour, and Bianca facing her father so that I
+was on her right.
+
+The seneschal bestirred himself, and the silken ministering pages
+fluttered round us. My Lord of Pagliano was one who kept a table as
+luxurious as all else in his splendid palace. First came a broth of veal
+in silver basins, then a stew of cocks' combs and capons' breasts, then
+the ham of a roasted boar, the flesh very lusciously saturated with the
+flavour of rosemary; and there was venison that was as soft as velvet,
+and other things that I no longer call to mind. And to drink there was a
+fragrant, well-sunned wine of Lombardy that had been cooled in snow.
+
+Galeotto ate enormously, Cavalcanti daintily, I but little, and Bianca
+nothing. Her presence had set up such emotions in me that I had no
+thought for food. But I drank deeply, and so came presently to a
+spurious ease which enabled me to take my share in the talk that
+was toward, though when all is said it was but a slight share, since
+Cavalcanti and Galeotto discoursed of matters wherein my knowledge was
+not sufficient to enable me to bear a conspicuous part.
+
+More than once I was on the point of addressing Bianca herself, but
+always courage failed me. I had ever in mind the memory she must have of
+me as she had last seen me, to increase the painful diffidence which her
+presence itself imposed upon me. Nor did I hear her voice more than once
+or twice when she demurely answered such questions as her father set
+her. And though once or twice I found her stealing a look at me, she
+would instantly avert her eyes when our glances crossed.
+
+Thus was our first meeting, and for a little time it was to be our last,
+because I lacked the courage to seek her out. She had her own apartments
+at Pagliano with her own maids of honour, like a princess; and the
+castle garden was entirely her domain into which even her father seldom
+intruded. He gave me the freedom of it; but it was a freedom of which I
+never took advantage in the week that we abode there. Several times
+was I on the point of doing so. But I was ever restrained by my
+unconquerable diffidence.
+
+And there was something else to impose restraint upon me. Hitherto the
+memory of Giuliana had come to haunt me in my hermitage, by arousing in
+me yearnings which I had to combat with fasting and prayer, with scourge
+and dice. Now the memory of her haunted me again; but in a vastly
+different way. It haunted me with the reminder of all the sin in which
+through her I had steeped myself; and just as the memory of that sin had
+made me in purer moments deem myself unworthy to be the guardian of
+the shrine on Monte Orsaro, so now did it cause me to deem myself
+all unworthy to enter the garden that enshrined Madonna Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti.
+
+Before the purity that shone from her I recoiled in an awe whose nature
+was as the feelings of a religion. I felt that to seek her presence
+would be almost to defile her. And so I abstained, my mind very full
+of her the while, for all that the time was beguiled for me in daily
+exercise with horse and arms under the guidance of Galeotto.
+
+I was not so tutored merely for the sake of repairing a grave omission
+in my education. It had a definite scope, as Galeotto frankly told me,
+informing me that the time approached in which to avenge my father and
+strike a blow for my own rights.
+
+And then at the end of a week a man rode into the courtyard of Pagliano
+one day, and flung down from his horse shouting to be led to Messer
+Galeotto. There was something about this courier's mien and person that
+awoke a poignant memory. I was walking in the gallery when the clatter
+of his advent drew my attention, and his voice sent a strange thrill
+through me.
+
+One glance I gave to make quite sure, and then I leapt down the broad
+steps four at a time, and a moment later, to the amazement of all
+present, I had caught the dusty rider in my arms, and I was kissing the
+wrinkled, scarred, and leathery old cheeks.
+
+"Falcone!" I cried. "Falcone, do you not know me?"
+
+He was startled by the violence of my passionate onslaught. Indeed, he
+was almost borne to the ground by it, for his old legs were stiff now
+from riding.
+
+And then--how he stared! What oaths he swore!
+
+"Madonnino!" he babbled. "Madonnino!" And he shook himself free of my
+embrace, and stood back that he might view me. "Body of Satan! But you
+are finely grown, and how like to what your father was when he was no
+older than are you! And they have not made a shaveling of you, after
+all. Now blessed be God for that!" Then he stopped short, and his eyes
+went past me, and he seemed to hesitate.
+
+I turned, and there, leaning on the balustrade of the staircase, looking
+on with smiling eyes stood Galeotto with Messer Cavalcanti at his elbow.
+
+I heard Galeotto's words to the Lord of Pagliano. "His heart is
+sound--which is a miracle. That woman, it seems, could not quite
+dehumanize him." And he came down heavily, to ask Falcone what news he
+bore.
+
+The old equerry drew a letter from under his leathern jacket.
+
+"From Ferrante?" quoth the Lord of Pagliano eagerly, peering over
+Galeotto's shoulder.
+
+"Ay," said Galeotto, and he broke the seal. He stood to read, with
+knitted brows. "It is well," he said, at last, and passed the sheet to
+Cavalcanti. "Farnese is in Piacenza already, and the Pope will sway the
+College to give his bastard the ducal crown. It is time we stirred."
+
+He turned to Falcone, whilst Cavalcanti read the letter. "Take food and
+rest, good Gino. For to-morrow you ride again with me. And so shall you,
+Agostino."
+
+"I ride again?" I echoed, my heart sinking and some of my dismay showing
+upon my face. "Whither?"
+
+"To right the wrongs of Mondolfo," he answered shortly, and turned away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+
+We rode again upon the morrow as he had said, and with us went Falcone
+and the same goodly company of twenty lances that had escorted me from
+Monte Orsaro. But I took little thought for them or pride in such an
+escort now. My heart was leaden. I had not seen Bianca again ere I
+departed, and Heaven knew when we should return to Pagliano. Thus at
+least was I answered by Galeotto when I made bold to ask the question.
+
+Two days we rode, going by easy stages, and came at last upon that
+wondrously fair and imposing city of Milan, in the very heart of the
+vast plain of Lombardy with the distant Alps for background and northern
+rampart.
+
+Our destination was the castle; and in a splendid ante-chamber, packed
+with rustling, silken courtiers and clanking captains in steel, a
+sprinkling of prelates and handsome, insolent-eyed women, more than one
+of whom reminded me of Giuliana, and every one of whom I disparaged by
+comparing her with Bianca, Galeotto and I stood waiting.
+
+To many there he seemed known, and several came to greet him and some to
+whisper in his ear. At last a pert boy in a satin suit that was striped
+in the Imperial livery of black and yellow, pushed his way through the
+throng.
+
+"Messer Galeotto," his shrill voice announced, "his excellency awaits
+you."
+
+Galeotto took my arm, and drew me forward with him. Thus we went through
+a lane that opened out before us in that courtly throng, and came to a
+curtained door. An usher raised the curtain for us at a sign from the
+page, who, opening, announced us to the personage within.
+
+We stood in a small closet, whose tall, slender windows overlooked
+the courtyard, and from the table, on which there was a wealth of
+parchments, rose a very courtly gentleman to receive us out of a
+gilded chair, the arms of which were curiously carved into the shape of
+serpents' heads.
+
+He was a well-nourished, florid man of middle height, with a resolute
+mouth, high cheek-bones, and crafty, prominent eyes that reminded
+me vaguely of the eyes of the taverner of Pojetta. He was splendidly
+dressed in a long gown of crimson damask edged with lynx fur, and
+the fingers of his fat hands and one of his thumbs were burdened with
+jewels.
+
+This was Ferrante Gonzaga, Prince of Molfetta, Duke of Ariano, the
+Emperor's Lieutenant and Governor of the State of Milan.
+
+The smile with which he had been ready to greet Galeotto froze slightly
+at sight of me. But before he could voice the question obviously in his
+mind my companion had presented me.
+
+"Here, my lord, is one upon whom I trust that we may count when the time
+comes. This is Agostino d'Anguissola, of Mondolfo and Carmina."
+
+Surprise overspread Gonzaga's face. He seemed about to speak, and
+checked, and his eyes were very searchingly bent upon Galeotto's face,
+which remained inscrutable as stone. Then the Governor looked at me, and
+from me back again at Galeotto. At last he smiled, whilst I bowed before
+him, but very vaguely conscious of what might impend.
+
+"The time," he said, "seems to be none too distant. The Duke of
+Castro--this Pier Luigi Farnese--is so confident of ultimate success
+that already he has taken up his residence in Piacenza, and already, I
+am informed, is being spoken of as Duke of Parma and Piacenza."
+
+"He has cause," said Galeotto. "Who is to withstand his election since
+the Emperor, like Pilate, has washed his hands of the affair?"
+
+A smile overspread Gonzaga's crafty face. "Do not assume too much
+concerning the Emperor's wishes in the matter. His answer to the Pope
+was that if Parma and Piacenza are Imperial fiefs--integral parts of the
+State of Milan--it would ill become the Emperor to alienate them from
+an empire which he holds merely in trust; whereas if they can be shown
+rightly to belong to the Holy See, why then the matter concerns him not,
+and the Holy See may settle it."
+
+Galeotto shrugged and his face grew dark. "It amounts to an assent," he
+said.
+
+"Not so," purred Gonzaga, seating himself once more. "It amounts to
+nothing. It is a Sibylline answer which nowise prejudices what he may do
+in future. We still hope," he added, "that the Sacred College may refuse
+the investiture. Pier Luigi Farnese is not in good odour in the Curia."
+
+"The Sacred College cannot withstand the Pope's desires. He has bribed
+it with the undertaking to restore Nepi and Camerino to the States of
+the Church in exchange for Parma and Piacenza, which are to form a State
+for his son. How long, my lord, do you think the College will resist
+him?"
+
+"The Spanish Cardinals all have the Emperor's desires at heart."
+
+"The Spanish Cardinals may oppose the measure until they choke
+themselves with their vehemence," was the ready answer. "There are
+enough of the Pope's creatures to carry the election, and if there were
+not it would be his to create more until there should be sufficient for
+his purpose. It is an old subterfuge."
+
+"Well, then," said Gonzaga, smiling, "since you are so assured, it
+is for you and the nobles of Piacenza to be up and doing. The Emperor
+depends upon you; and you may depend upon him."
+
+Galeotto looked at the Governor out of his scarred face, and his eyes
+were very grave.
+
+"I had hoped otherwise," he said. "That is why I have been slow to move.
+That is why I have waited, why I have even committed the treachery
+of permitting Pier Luigi to suppose me ready at need to engage in his
+service."
+
+"Ah, there you play a dangerous game," said Gonzaga frankly.
+
+"I'll play a more dangerous still ere I have done," he answered stoutly.
+"Neither Pope nor Devil shall dismay me. I have great wrongs to right,
+as none knows better than your excellency, and if my life should go in
+the course of it, why"--he shrugged and sneered--"it is all that is left
+me; and life is a little thing when a man has lost all else."
+
+"I know, I know," said the sly Governor, wagging his big head, "else I
+had not warned you. For we need you, Messer Galeotto."
+
+"Ay, you need me; you'll make a tool of me--you and your Emperor. You'll
+use me as a cat's-paw to pull down this inconvenient duke."
+
+Gonzaga rose, frowning. "You go a little far, Messer Galeotto," he said.
+
+"I go no farther than you urge me," answered the other.
+
+"But patience, patience!" the Lieutenant soothed him, growing sleek
+again in tone and manner. "Consider now the position. What the Emperor
+has answered the Pope is no more than the bare and precise truth. It is
+not clear whether the States of Parma and Piacenza belong to the
+Empire or the Holy See. But let the people rise and show themselves
+ill-governed, let them revolt against Farnese once he has been created
+their duke and when thus the State shall have been alienated from the
+Holy See, and then you may count upon the Emperor to step in as your
+liberator and to buttress up your revolt."
+
+"Do you promise us so much?" asked Galeotto.
+
+"Explicitly," was the ready answer, "upon my most sacred honour. Send
+me word that you are in arms, that the first blow has been struck, and
+I shall be with you with all the force that I can raise in the Emperor's
+name."
+
+"Your excellency has warrant for this?" demanded Galeotto.
+
+"Should I promise it else? About it, sir. You may work with confidence."
+
+"With confidence, yes," replied Galeotto gloomily, "but with no great
+hope. The Pontifical government has ground the spirit out of half
+the nobles of the Val di Taro. They have suffered so much and so
+repeatedly--in property, in liberty, in life itself--that they are grown
+rabbit-hearted, and would sooner cling to the little liberty that is
+still theirs than strike a blow to gain what belongs to them by every
+right. Oh, I know them of old! What man can do, I shall do; but..." He
+shrugged, and shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+"Can you count on none?" asked Gonzaga, very serious, stroking his
+smooth, fat chin.
+
+"I can count upon one," answered Galeotto. "The Lord of Pagliano; he is
+ghibelline to the very marrow, and he belongs to me. At my bidding there
+is nothing he will not do. There is an old debt between us, and he is
+a noble soul who will not leave his debts unpaid. Upon him I can count;
+and he is rich and powerful. But then, he is not really a Piacentino
+himself. He holds his fief direct from the Emperor. Pagliano is part of
+the State of Milan, and Cavalcanti is no subject of Farnese. His case,
+therefore, is exceptional and he has less than the usual cause for
+timidity. But the others..." Again he shrugged. "What man can do to stir
+them, that will I do. You shall hear from me soon again, my lord."
+
+Gonzaga looked at me. "Did you not say that here was another?"
+
+Galeotto smiled sadly. "Ay--just one arm and one sword. That is all.
+Unless this emprise succeeds he is never like to rule in Mondolfo. He
+may be counted upon; but he brings no lances with him."
+
+"I see," said Gonzaga, his lip between thumb and forefinger. "But his
+name..."
+
+"That and his wrongs shall be used, depend upon it, my lord--the wrongs
+which are his by inheritance."
+
+I said no word. A certain resentment filled me to hear myself so
+disposed of without being consulted; and yet it was tempered by a
+certain trust in Galeotto, a faith that he would lead me into nothing
+unworthy.
+
+Gonzaga conducted us to the door of the closet. "I shall look to hear
+from you, Ser Galeotto," he said. "And if at first the nobles of the
+Val di Taro are not to be moved, perhaps after they have had a taste
+of Messer Pier Luigi's ways they will gather courage out of despair.
+I think we may be hopeful if patient. Meanwhile, my master the Emperor
+shall be informed."
+
+Another moment and we were out of that florid, crafty, well-nourished
+presence. The curtains had dropped behind us, and we were thrusting our
+way through the press in the ante-chamber, Galeotto muttering to himself
+things which as we gained the open air I gathered to be curses directed
+against the Emperor and his Milanese Lieutenant.
+
+In the inn of the sign of the Sun, by the gigantic Duomo of Visconti's
+building, he opened the gates to his anger and let it freely forth.
+
+"It is a world of cravens," he said, "a world of slothful, self-seeking,
+supine cowards, Agostino. In the Emperor, at least, I conceived that we
+should have found a man who would not be averse to acting boldly where
+his interests must be served. More I had not expected of him; but that,
+at least. And even in that he fails me. Oh, this Charles V!" he cried.
+"This prince upon whose dominions the sun never sets! Fortune has
+bestowed upon him all the favours in her gift, yet for himself he can do
+nothing.
+
+"He is crafty, cruel, irresolute, and mistrustful of all. He is without
+greatness of any sort, and he is all but Emperor of the World! Others
+must do his work for him; others must compass the conquests which he is
+to enjoy.
+
+"Ah, well!" he ended, with a sneer, "perhaps as the world views these
+things there is a certain greatness in that--the greatness of the fox."
+
+Naturally there was much in this upon which I needed explanation, and I
+made bold to intrude upon his anger to crave it. And it was then that I
+learnt the true position of affairs.
+
+Between France and the Empire, the State of Milan had been in contention
+until quite lately, when Henri II had abandoned it to Charles V. And
+in the State of Milan were the States of Parma and Piacenza, which Pope
+Julius II had wrested from it and incorporated in the domain of the
+Church. The act, however, was unlawful, and although these States
+had ever since been under Pontifical rule, it was to Milan that they
+belonged, though Milan never yet had had the power to enforce her
+rights. She had that power at last, now that the Emperor's rule there
+was a thing determined, and it was in this moment that papal nepotism
+was to make a further alienation of them by constituting them into
+a duchy for the Farnese bastard, Pier Luigi, who was already Duke of
+Castro.
+
+Under papal rule the nobles--more particularly the ghibellines--and
+the lesser tyrants of the Val di Taro had suffered rudely, plundered by
+Pontifical brigandage, enduring confiscations and extortions until they
+were reduced to a miserable condition. It was against the beginnings of
+this that my father had raised his standard, to be crushed thorough the
+supineness of his peers, who would not support him to save themselves
+from being consumed in the capacious maw of Rome.
+
+But what they had suffered hitherto would be as nothing to what they
+must suffer if the Pope now had his way and if Pier Luigi Farnese were
+to become their duke--an independent prince. He would break the nobles
+utterly, to remain undisputed master of the territory. That was a
+conclusion foregone. And yet our princelings saw the evil approaching
+them, and cowered irresolute to await and suffer it.
+
+They had depended, perhaps, upon the Emperor, who, it was known, did
+not favour the investiture, nor would confirm it. It was remembered that
+Ottavio Farnese--Pier Luigi's son--was married to Margaret of Austria,
+the Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was to be
+in Parma and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be that
+of his own son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the Empire.
+Further was it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and Emperor
+to gain the investiture in his own father's stead.
+
+"The unnatural son!" I exclaimed upon learning that.
+
+Galeotto looked at me, and smiled darkly, stroking his great beard.
+
+"Say, rather, the unnatural father," he replied. "More honour to Ottavio
+Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son.
+It is not a parentage in which any man--be he the most abandoned--could
+take pride."
+
+"How so?" quoth I.
+
+"You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier
+Luigi Farnese. I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes
+must have penetrated even to a hermitage--that they would be written
+upon the very face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his
+infamous life. He is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless,
+bloody, vicious man that ever drew the breath of life. Indeed, there are
+not wanting those who call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who
+has sold his soul to the Devil. Though, for that matter, they say the
+same of the Pope his father, and I doubt not that his magic is just the
+magic of a wickedness that is scarcely human.
+
+"There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and
+a wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
+lately written the life of another Pope's son--Cesare Borgia, who
+lived nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to
+consolidate the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier
+Luigi's, was to found a State for himself. I am given to think that for
+his model of a Pope's bastard this Giovio has taken the wretched Farnese
+rogue, and attributed to the son of Alexander VI the vices and infamies
+of this son of Paul III.
+
+"Even to attempt to draw a parallel is to insult the memory of the
+Borgia; for he, at least, was a great captain and a great ruler, and he
+knew how to endear to himself the fold that he governed; so that when I
+was a lad--thirty years ago--there were still those in the Romagna who
+awaited the Borgia's return, and prayed for it as earnestly as pray the
+faithful for the second coming of the Messiah, refusing to believe that
+he was dead. But this Pier Luigi!" He thrust out a lip contemptuously.
+"He is no better than a thief, a murderer, a defiler, a bestial,
+lecherous dog!"
+
+And with that he began to relate some of the deeds of this man; and his
+life, it seemed, was written in blood and filth--a tale of murders
+and rapes and worse. And when as a climax he told me of the horrible,
+inhuman outrage done to Cosimo Gheri, the young Bishop of Fano, I begged
+him to cease, for my horror turned me almost physically sick.1
+
+1 The incident to which Agostino here alludes is fully set forth by
+Benedetto Varchi at the end of Book XVI of his Storia Fiorentina.
+
+
+"That bishop was a holy man, of very saintly life," Galeotto insisted,
+"and the deed permitted the German Lutherans to say that here was a new
+form of martyrdom for saints invented by the Pope's son. And his father
+pardoned him the deed, and others as bad, by a secret bull, absolving
+him from all pains and penalties that he might have incurred through
+youthful frailty or human incontinence!"
+
+It was the relation of those horrors, I think, which, stirring my
+indignation, spurred me even more than the thought of redressing the
+wrongs which the Pontifical or Farnesian government would permit my
+mother to do me.
+
+I held out my hand to Galeotto. "To the utmost of my little might,"
+said I, "you may depend upon me in this good cause in which you have
+engaged."
+
+"There speaks the son of the house of Anguissola," said he, a light
+of affection in his steel-coloured eyes. "And there are your father's
+wrongs to right as well as the wrongs of humanity, remember. By this
+Pier Luigi was he crushed; whilst those who bore arms with him at
+Perugia and were taken alive..." He paused and turned livid, great beads
+of perspiration standing upon his brow. "I cannot," he faltered, "I
+cannot even now, after all these years, bear to think upon those horrors
+perpetrated by that monster."
+
+I was strangely moved at the sight of emotion in one who seemed
+emotionless as iron.
+
+"I left the hermitage," said I, "in the hope that I might the better be
+able to serve God in the world. I think you are showing me the way, Ser
+Galeotto."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+
+We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season
+of wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny
+to tyranny, just the three of us--Galeotto and myself with Falcone for
+our equerry and attendant.
+
+Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been
+in me; for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the
+fanaticism with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the
+course I had taken then.
+
+I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
+Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke
+of Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza--for the investiture duly
+followed in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to
+be felt throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a
+prince.
+
+And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto
+cunningly added yet another and more worldly spur. We were riding one
+day in late September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had
+spent a month in seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of
+resistance, and we were making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold
+of that great Lombard family of dal Verme.
+
+As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
+Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled
+me by his words.
+
+"Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino," he said,
+and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.
+
+In my confusion--more or less at random--"What should Cavalcanti's
+daughter be to me?" I asked.
+
+"Why, what you will, I think," he answered, taking my question
+literally. "Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
+a suitable mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her
+to the landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than
+any man that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired."
+
+"Do you think I need this added spur?" quoth I.
+
+"Nay, I know that you do not. But it is well to know what reward
+may wait upon our labour. It makes that labour lighter and increases
+courage."
+
+I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.
+
+He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender. Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti! It was a name I uttered like a prayer, like a holy
+invocation. Just so had I been in a measure content to carry that name
+and the memory of her sweet face. To consider her as the possible
+Lady of Mondolfo when I should once more have come into my own, was to
+consider things that filled me almost with despair.
+
+Again I experienced such hesitations as had kept me from ever seeking
+her at Pagliano, though I had been given the freedom of her garden.
+Giuliana had left her brand upon me. And though Bianca had by now
+achieved for me what neither prayers nor fasting could accomplish, and
+had exorcized the unholy visions of Giuliana from my mind, yet when I
+came to consider Bianca as a possible companion--as something more
+or something less than a saint enthroned in the heaven created by my
+worship of her--there rose between us ever that barrier of murder
+and adultery, a barrier which not even in imagination did I dare to
+overstep.
+
+I strove to put such thoughts from my mind that I might leave it free to
+do the work to which I had now vowed myself.
+
+All through that winter we pursued our mission. With the dal Verme we
+had but indifferent success, for they accounted themselves safe, being,
+like Cavalcanti, feudatories of the Emperor himself, and nowise included
+in the territories of Parma and Piacenza. From Romagnese we made our way
+to the stronghold of the Anguissola of Albarola, my cousins, who gave
+me a very friendly welcome, and who, though with us in spirit and
+particularly urged by their hatred of our guelphic cousin Cosimo who was
+now Pier Luigi's favourite, yet hesitated as the others had done. And
+we met with little better success with Sforza of Santafiora, to
+whose castle we next repaired, or yet with the Landi, the Scotti, or
+Confalonieri. Everywhere the same spirit of awe was abroad, and the same
+pusillanimity, content to hug the little that remained rather than rear
+its head to demand that which by right belonged.
+
+So that when the spring came round again, and our mission done, our
+crusade preached to hearts that would not be inflamed, we turned
+our steps once more towards Pagliano, we were utterly dispirited
+men--although, for myself, my despondency was tempered a little by the
+thought that I was to see Bianca once more.
+
+Yet before I come to speak of her again, let me have done with these
+historical matters in so far as they touched ourselves.
+
+We had left the nobles unresponsive, as you have seen. But soon the
+prognostications of the crafty Gonzaga were realized. Soon Farnese,
+through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy. The first
+to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their
+lands of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife
+and mother. Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing
+Romagnese to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their
+other fief of Bobbio. Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched
+upon Castel San Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and
+at the same time he committed the mistake of attempting to drive the
+Gonzaga out of Soragna.
+
+This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
+resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga. With the Imperial troops at his heels
+the Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his
+family, but forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese,
+restoring them to the dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of
+San Giovanni upon which he was at the time engaged--claiming that both
+these noble houses were feudatories of the Empire.
+
+Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
+steely claws. To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
+Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
+their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
+cities of their districts. Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed
+at once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his
+will, he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.
+
+Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
+having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
+residence in our palace in the city itself. But she went further than
+she was bidden--she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
+retired from the world.
+
+The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
+Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his
+garden, slicing the tallest poppies from their stems. And soon to swell
+his treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
+confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set
+himself to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate
+laws that were retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines
+and perpetrate fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been
+done long years ago.
+
+Amongst these, we heard that he had Giovanni d'Anguissola decapitated in
+effigy for his rebellion against the authority of the Holy See, and that
+my tyrannies of Mondolfo and Carmina were confiscated from me because of
+my offence in being Giovanni d'Anguissola's son. And presently we heard
+that Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal
+servant and captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a
+thousand ducats yearly!
+
+Galeotto ground his teeth and swore horribly when the news was brought
+us from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope
+of Bianca--the hope secretly entertained almost against hope
+itself--withering in my soul.
+
+But soon came consolation. Pier Luigi had gone too far. Even rats when
+cornered will turn at bay and bare their teeth for combat. So now the
+nobles of the Valnure and the Val di Taro.
+
+The Scotti, the Pallavicini, the Landi, and the Anguissola of Albarola,
+came one after the other in secret to Pagliano to interview the gloomy
+Galeotto. And at one gathering that was secretly held in a chamber of
+the castle, he lashed them with his furious scorn.
+
+"You are come now," he jeered at them, "now that you are maimed; now
+that you have been bled of half your strength; now that most of your
+teeth are drawn. Had you but had the spirit and good sense to rise six
+months ago when I summoned you so to do, the struggle had been brief
+and the victory certain. Now the fight will be all fraught with risk,
+dangerous to engage, and uncertain of issue."
+
+But it was they--these men who themselves had been so pusillanimous at
+first--who now urged him to take the lead, swearing to follow him to the
+death, to save for their children what little was still left them.
+
+"In that spirit I will not lead you a step," he answered them. "If we
+raise our standard, we fight for all our ancient rights, for all our
+privileges, and for the restoration of all that has been confiscated;
+in short, for the expulsion of the Farnese from these lands. If that is
+your spirit, then I will consider what is to be done--for, believe me,
+open warfare will no longer avail us here. What we have to do must
+be done by guile. You have waited too long to resolve yourselves. And
+whilst you have grown weak, Farnese has been growing strong. He has
+fawned upon and flattered the populace; he has set the people against
+the nobles; he has pretended that in crushing the nobles he was serving
+the people, and they--poor fools!--have so far believed him that they
+will run to his banner in any struggle that may ensue."
+
+He dismissed them at last with the promise that they should hear from
+him, and on the morrow, attended by Falcone only, he rode forth again
+from Pagliano, to seek out the dal Verme and the Sforza of Santafiora
+and endeavour to engage their interest against the man who had outraged
+them.
+
+And that was early in August of the year '46.
+
+I remained at Pagliano by Galeotto's request. He would have no need
+of me upon his mission. But he might desire me to seek out some of the
+others of the Val di Taro with such messages as he should send me.
+
+And in all this time I had seen but little of Monna Bianca. We met under
+her father's eye in that gold-and-purple dining-room; and there I would
+devoutly, though surreptitiously, feast my eyes upon the exquisite
+beauty of her. But I seldom spoke to her, and then it was upon the most
+trivial matters; whilst although the summer was now full fragrantly
+unfolded, yet I never dared to intrude into that garden of hers to which
+I had been bidden, ever restrained by the overwhelming memory of the
+past.
+
+So poignant was this memory that at times I caught myself wondering
+whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in lending an ear so readily
+to the arguments of Fra Gervasio, whether Fra Gervasio himself had not
+been mistaken in assuming that my place was in the world, and whether I
+had not done best to have carried out my original intention of seeking
+refuge in some monastery in the lowly position of a lay brother.
+
+Meanwhile the Lord of Pagliano used me in the most affectionate and
+fatherly manner. But not even this sufficed to encourage me where
+his daughter was concerned, and I seemed to observe also that Bianca
+herself, if she did not actually avoid my society, was certainly at no
+pains to seek it.
+
+What the end would have been but for the terrible intervention there was
+in our affairs, I have often surmised without result.
+
+It happened that one day, about a week after Galeotto had left us there
+rode up to the gates of Pagliano a very magnificent company, and there
+was great braying of horns, stamping of horses and rattle of arms.
+
+My Lord Pier Luigi Farnese had been on a visit to his city of Parma, and
+on his return journey had thought well to turn aside into the lands of
+ultra-Po, and pay a visit to the Lord of Pagliano, whom he did not love,
+yet whom, perhaps, it may have been his intention to conciliate, since
+hurt him he could not.
+
+Sufficiently severe had been the lesson he had received for meddling
+with Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of
+provoking further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V
+was a sleeping dog it was as well to leave sleeping.
+
+He rode, then, upon his friendly visit into the Castle of Pagliano,
+attended by a vast retinue of courtiers and ladies, pages, lackeys, and
+a score of men-at-arms. A messenger had ridden on in advance to
+warn Cavalcanti of the honour that the Duke proposed to do him,
+and Cavalcanti, relishing the honour no whit, yet submitting out of
+discreetness, stood to receive his excellency at the foot of the marble
+staircase with Bianca on one side and myself upon the other.
+
+Under the archway they rode, Farnese at the head of the cavalcade. He
+bestrode a splendid white palfrey, whose mane and tail were henna-dyed,
+whose crimson velvet trappings trailed almost to the ground. He was
+dressed in white velvet, even to his thigh-boots, which were laced with
+gold and armed with heavy gold spurs. A scarlet plume was clasped by a
+great diamond in his velvet cap, and on his right wrist was perched a
+hooded falcon.
+
+He was a tall and gracefully shaped man of something over forty years of
+age, black-haired and olive-skinned, wearing a small pointed beard that
+added length to his face. His nose was aquiline, and he had fine eyes,
+but under them there were heavy brown shadows, and as he came nearer it
+was seen that his countenance was marred by an unpleasant eruption of
+sores.
+
+After him came his gentlemen, a round dozen of them, with half that
+number of splendid ladies, all a very dazzling company. Behind these,
+in blazing liveries, there was a cloud of pages upon mules, and lackeys
+leading sumpter-beasts; and then to afford them an effective background,
+a grey, steel phalanx of men-at-arms.
+
+I describe his entrance as it appeared at a glance, for I did not study
+it or absorb any of its details. My horrified gaze was held by a figure
+that rode on his right hand, a queenly woman with a beautiful pale
+countenance and a lazy, insolent smile.
+
+It was Giuliana.
+
+How she came there I did not at the moment trouble to reflect. She was
+there. That was the hideous fact that made me doubt the sight of my own
+eyes, made me conceive almost that I was at my disordered visions again,
+the fruit of too much brooding. I felt as if all the blood were being
+exhausted from my heart, as if my limbs would refuse their office, and
+I leaned for support against the terminal of the balustrade by which I
+stood.
+
+She saw me. And after the first slight start of astonishment, her lazy
+smile grew broader and more insolent. I was but indifferently conscious
+of the hustle about me, of the fact that Cavalcanti himself was holding
+the Duke's stirrup, whilst the latter got slowly to the ground and
+relinquished his falcon to a groom who wore a perch suspended from his
+neck, bearing three other hooded birds. Similarly I was no more than
+conscious of being forced to face the Duke by words that Cavalcanti was
+uttering. He was presenting me.
+
+"This, my lord, is Agostino d'Anguissola."
+
+I saw, as through a haze, the swarthy, pustuled visage frown down upon
+me. I heard a voice which was at once harsh and effeminate and quite
+detestable, saying in unfriendly tones:
+
+"The son of Giovanni d'Anguissola of Mondolfo, eh?"
+
+"The same, my lord," said Cavalcanti, adding generously--"Giovanni
+d'Anguissola was my friend."
+
+"It is a friendship that does you little credit, sir," was the harsh
+answer. "It is not well to befriend the enemies of God."
+
+Was it possible that I had heard aright? Had this human foulness dared
+to speak of God?
+
+"That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest," said
+Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed
+from his brown eyes.
+
+At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that,
+forewarned of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that
+one blast from the silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have
+produced a tide of men-at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed
+Messer Pier Luigi and his suite.
+
+Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh. And then a lazy,
+drawling voice--a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears,
+but now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs--addressed me.
+
+"Why, here is a great change, sir saint! We had heard you had turned
+anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would
+out-dazzle Phoebus."
+
+I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face,
+and I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us
+with eyes of grave concern.
+
+"I like you better for the change," pursued Giuliana. "And I vow
+that you have grown at least another inch. Have you no word for me,
+Agostino?"
+
+I was forced to answer her. "I trust that all is well with you,
+Madonna," I said.
+
+Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of
+her strong teeth. "Why, all is very well with me," said she, and her
+sidelong glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious
+kindliness, seemed to give added explanations.
+
+That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
+wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and
+saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then,
+for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark
+turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name.
+
+And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my
+Bianca, speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy
+fire what time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily.
+He seemed to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance
+that he kept us all standing there.
+
+"You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna," I heard him
+murmuring. "We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen
+in this garden of Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should
+be hidden in this grey casket. You were made to queen it in a court,
+Madonna; and at Piacenza you shall be hailed and honoured as its queen."
+And so he rambled on with his rough and trivial flattery, his foully
+pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very
+white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows,
+and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the
+courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a
+sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable adulation.
+
+It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
+peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MADONNA BIANCA
+
+
+Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
+Pagliano. But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
+upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.
+
+A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
+the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to
+his secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I
+learnt, was my old friend Annibale Caro.
+
+And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
+presence, and gave him and his suite most noble entertainment.
+
+His position was perilous and precarious in the extreme, and it needed
+all his strength of character to hold in curb the resentment that boiled
+within him to see himself thus preyed upon; and that was not the
+worst. The worst was Pier Luigi's ceaseless attentions to Bianca,
+the attentions of the satyr for the nymph, a matter in which I think
+Cavalcanti suffered little less than did I.
+
+He hoped for the best, content to wait until cause for action should
+be forced upon him. And meanwhile that courtly throng took its ease at
+Pagliano. The garden that hitherto had been Bianca's own sacred domain,
+the garden into which I had never yet dared set foot, was overrun now
+by the Duke's gay suite--a cloud of poisonous butterflies. There in the
+green, shaded alleys they disported themselves; in the lemon-grove,
+in the perfumed rose-garden, by hedges of box and screens of purple
+clematis they fluttered.
+
+Bianca sought to keep her chamber in those days, and kept it for as
+long on each day as was possible to her. But the Duke, hobbling on
+the terrace--for as a consequence of his journey on horseback he had
+developed a slight lameness, being all rotten with disease--would grow
+irritable at her absence, and insistent upon her presence, hinting that
+her retreat was a discourtesy; so that she was forced to come forth
+again, and suffer his ponderous attentions and gross flatteries.
+
+And three days later there came another to Pagliano, bidden thither by
+the Duke, and this other was none else than my cousin Cosimo, who now
+called himself Lord of Mondolfo, having been invested in that tyranny,
+as I have said.
+
+On the morning after his arrival we met upon the terrace.
+
+"My saintly cousin!" was his derisive greeting. "And yet another change
+in you--out of sackcloth into velvet! The calendar shall know you as St.
+Weathercock, I think--or, perhaps, St. Mountebank."
+
+What followed was equally bitter and sardonic on his part, fiercely and
+openly hostile on mine. At my hostility he had smiled cruelly.
+
+"Be content with what is, my strolling saint," he said, in the tone of
+one who gives a warning, "unless you would be back in your hermitage, or
+within the walls of some cloister, or even worse. Already have you found
+it a troublesome matter to busy yourself with the affairs of the world.
+You were destined for sanctity." He came closer, and grew very fierce.
+"Do not put it upon me to make a saint of you by sending you to Heaven."
+
+"It might end in your own dispatch to Hell," said I. "Shall we essay
+it?"
+
+"Body of God!" he snarled, laughter still lingering on his white face.
+"Is this the mood of your holiness at present? What a bloodthirsty brave
+are you become! Consider, pray, sir, that if you trouble me I have no
+need to do my own office of hangman. There is sufficient against you
+to make the Tribunal of the Ruota very busy; there is--can you have
+forgotten it?--that little affair at the house of Messer Fifanti."
+
+I dropped my glance, browbeaten for an instant. Then I looked at him
+again, and smiled.
+
+"You are but a poor coward, Messer Cosimo," said I, "to use a shadow as
+a screen. You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana
+speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake. There are witnesses who
+will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night. There is not
+one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth
+again; and it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana
+is well-known, as it is well-known that she fled with him after the
+murder--which, in itself, is evidence of a sort. Your Duke has too great
+a respect for the feelings of the populace," I sneered, "to venture to
+outrage them in such a matter. Besides," I ended, "it is impossible to
+incriminate me without incriminating Giuliana and, Messer Pier Luigi
+seems, I should say, unwilling to relinquish the lady to the brutalities
+of a tribunal."
+
+"You are greatly daring," said he, and he was pale now, for in that last
+mention of Giuliana, it seemed that I had touched him where he was still
+sensitive.
+
+"Daring?" I rejoined. "It is more than I can say for you, Ser Cosimo.
+Yours is the coward's fault of caution."
+
+I thought to spur him. If this failed, I was prepared to strike him, for
+my temper was beyond control. That he, standing towards me as he did,
+should dare to mock me, was more than I could brook. But at that moment
+there spoke a harsh voice just behind me.
+
+"How, sir? What words are these?"
+
+There, very magnificent in his suit of ivory velvet, stood the Duke. He
+was leaning heavily upon his cane, and his face was more blotched than
+ever, the sunken eyes more sunken.
+
+"Are you seeking to quarrel with the Lord of Mondolfo?" quoth he, and I
+saw by his smile that he used my cousin's title as a taunt.
+
+Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had
+seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now
+there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes. A little
+on one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen
+with Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us
+with half-veiled eyes.
+
+"My lord," I answered, very stiff and erect, and giving him back look
+for look, something perhaps of the loathing with which he inspired
+me imprinted on my face, "my lord, you give yourself idle alarms. Ser
+Cosimo is too cautious to embroil himself."
+
+He limped toward me; leaning heavily upon his stick, and it pleased me
+that of a good height though he was, he was forced to look up into my
+face.
+
+"There is too much bad Anguissola blood in you," he said. "Be careful
+lest out of our solicitude for you, we should find it well to let our
+leech attend you."
+
+I laughed, looking into his blotched face, considering his lame leg and
+all the evil humours in him.
+
+"By my faith, I think it is your excellency needs the attentions of a
+leech," said I, and flung all present into consternation by that answer.
+
+I saw his face turn livid, and I saw the hand shake upon the golden
+head of his cane. He was very sensitive upon the score of his foul
+infirmities. His eyes grew baleful as he controlled himself. Then he
+smiled, displaying a ruin of blackened teeth.
+
+"You had best take care," he said. "It were a pity to cripple such fine
+limbs as yours. But there is a certain matter upon which the Holy Office
+might desire to set you some questions. Best be careful, sir, and avoid
+disagreements with my captains."
+
+He turned away. He had had the last word, and had left me cold with
+apprehension, yet warmed by the consciousness that in the brief
+encounter it was he who had taken the deeper wound.
+
+He bowed before Bianca. "Oh, pardon me," he said. "I did not dream you
+stood so near. Else no such harsh sounds should have offended your fair
+ears. As for Messer d'Anguissola..." He shrugged as who would say, "Have
+pity on such a boor!"
+
+But her answer, crisp and sudden as come words that are spoken on
+impulse or inspiration, dashed his confidence.
+
+"Nothing that he said offended me," she told him boldly, almost
+scornfully.
+
+He flashed me a glance that was full of venom, and I saw Cosimo smile,
+whilst Cavalcanti started slightly at such boldness from his meek child.
+But the Duke was sufficiently master of himself to bow again.
+
+"Then am I less aggrieved," said he, and changed the subject. "Shall we
+to the bowling lawn?" And his invitation was direct to Bianca, whilst
+his eyes passed over her father. Without waiting for their answer,
+his question, indeed, amounting to a command, he turned sharply to
+my cousin. "Your arm, Cosimo," said he, and leaning heavily upon his
+captain he went down the broad granite steps, followed by the little
+knot of courtiers, and, lastly, by Bianca and her father.
+
+As for me, I turned and went indoors, and there was little of the saint
+left in me in that hour. All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred
+and anger. Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that
+Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last
+to seek her but as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had
+spent at Pagliano.
+
+I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
+She was pacing slowly, having fled thither to avoid that hateful throng
+of courtiers. Seeing me she smiled timidly, and her smile gave me what
+little further encouragement I needed. I approached, and very earnestly
+rendered her my thanks for having championed my cause and supported me
+with the express sign of her approval.
+
+She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed
+and flowed in her cheeks.
+
+"You should not thank me," said she. "What I did was done for justice's
+sake."
+
+"I have been presumptuous," I answered humbly, "in conceiving that it
+might have been for the sake of me."
+
+"But it was that also," she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she
+had pained me. "It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat
+you. I took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return
+thrust for thrust."
+
+"I think your presence must have heartened me," said I. "No pain could
+be so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes."
+
+Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek. She began to
+pace slowly down the gallery, and I beside her. Presently she spoke
+again.
+
+"And yet," she said, "I would have you cautious. Do not wantonly affront
+the Duke, for he is very powerful."
+
+"I have little left to lose," said I.
+
+"You have your life," said she.
+
+"A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in
+reproach."
+
+She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again.
+Thus we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was
+placed, with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to
+it with a little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and
+slightly over her. And now I grew strangely bold.
+
+"Set me some penance," I cried, "that shall make me worthy."
+
+Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
+
+"A penance?" quoth she. "I do not understand."
+
+"All my life," I explained, "has been a vain striving after something
+that eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned
+and rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro,
+seeking by penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had
+succumbed. That shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had
+done, the signs I believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It
+was not there that I should save myself. One night I was told so in a
+vision."
+
+She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell
+silent, staring back at her.
+
+"You knew!" I cried.
+
+Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as
+never yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time
+openly to consider me.
+
+"I know now," she breathed.
+
+"What do you know?" My voice was tense with excitement.
+
+"What was your vision?" she rejoined.
+
+"Have I not told you? There appeared to me one who called me back to the
+world; who assured me that there I should best serve God; who filled me
+with the conviction that she needed me. She addressed me by name, and
+spoke of a place of which I had never heard until that hour, but which
+to-day I know."
+
+"And you? And you?" she asked. "What answer did you make?"
+
+"I called her by name, although until that hour I did not know it."
+
+She bowed her head. Emotion set her all a-tremble.
+
+"It is what I have so often wondered," she confessed, scarce above a
+whisper. "And it is true--as true as it is strange!"
+
+"True?" I echoed. "It was the only true miracle in that place of false
+ones, and it was so clear a call of destiny that it decided me to return
+to the world which I had abandoned. And yet I have since wondered why.
+Here there seems to be no place for me any more than there was yonder.
+I am devout again with a worldly devotion now, yet with a devotion that
+must be Heaven-inspired, so pure and sweet it is. It has shut out from
+me all the foulness of that past; and yet I am unworthy. And that is why
+I cry to you to set me some penance ere I can make my prayer."
+
+She could not understand me, nor did she. We were not as ordinary
+lovers. We were not as man and maid who, meeting and being drawn each to
+the other, fence and trifle in a pretty game of dalliance until the maid
+opines that the appearances are safe, and that, her resistance having
+been of a seemly length, she may now make the ardently desired surrender
+with all war's honours. Nothing of that was in our wooing, a wooing
+which seemed to us, now that we spoke of it, to have been done when we
+had scarcely met, done in the vision that I had of her, and the vision
+that she had of me.
+
+With averted eyes she set me now a question.
+
+"Madonna Giuliana used you with a certain freedom on her arrival, and
+I have since heard your name coupled with her own by the Duke's ladies.
+But I have asked no questions of them. I know how false can be the
+tongues of courtly folk. I ask it now of you. What is or was this
+Madonna Giuliana to you?"
+
+"She was," I answered bitterly, "and God pity me that I must say it to
+you--she was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses."
+
+She made a little moan, and I saw her clasp her hands in her lap; and
+the sound and sight filled me with sorrow and despair. She must know.
+Better that the knowledge should stand between us as a barrier which
+both could see than that it should remain visible only to the eyes of my
+own soul, to daunt me.
+
+"O Bianca! Forgive me!" I cried. "I did not know! I did not know! I
+was a poor fool reared in seclusion and ripened thus for the first
+temptation that should touch me. That is what on Monte Orsaro I sought
+to expiate, that I might be worthy of the shrine I guarded then. That
+is what I would expiate now that I might be worthy of the shrine whose
+guardian I would become, the shrine at which I worship now."
+
+I was bending very low above her little brown head, in which the threads
+of the gold coif-net gleamed in the fading light.
+
+"If I had but had my vision sooner," I murmured, "how easy it would have
+been! Can you find mercy for me in your gentle heart? Can you forgive
+me, Bianca?
+
+"O Agostino," she answered very sadly, and the sound of my name from her
+lips, coming so naturally and easily, thrilled me like the sound of the
+mystic music of Monte Orsaro. "What shall I answer you? I cannot now.
+Give me leisure to think. My mind is all benumbed. You have hurt me so!"
+
+"Me miserable!" I cried.
+
+"I had believed you one who erred through excess of holiness."
+
+"Whereas I am one who attempted holiness through excess of error."
+
+"I had believed you so, so...O Agostino!" It was a little wail of pain.
+
+"Set me a penance," I implored her.
+
+"What penance can I set you? Will any penance restore to me my shattered
+faith?"
+
+I groaned miserably and covered my face with my hands. It seemed that I
+was indeed come to the end of all my hopes; that the world was become as
+much a mockery to me as had been the hermitage; that the one was to end
+for me upon the discovery of a fraud, as had the other ended--with the
+difference that in this case the fraud was in myself.
+
+It seemed, indeed, that our first communion must be our last. Ever since
+she had seen me step into that gold-and-purple dining-room at Pagliano,
+the incarnation of her vision, as she was the incarnation of mine,
+Bianca must have waited confidently for this hour, knowing that it was
+foreordained to come. Bitterness and disillusion were all that it had
+brought her.
+
+And then, ere more could be said, a thin, flute-like voice hissed down
+the vaulted gallery:
+
+"Madonna Bianca! To hide your beauty from our hungry eyes. To quench the
+light by which we guide our footsteps. To banish from us the happiness
+and joy of your presence! Unkind, unkind!"
+
+It was the Duke. In his white velvet suit he looked almost ghostly in
+the deepening twilight. He hobbled towards us, his stick tapping the
+black-and-white squares of the marble floor. He halted before her, and
+she put aside her emotion, donned a worldly mask, and rose to meet him.
+
+Then he looked at me, and his brooding eyes seemed to scan my face.
+
+"Why! It is Ser Agostino, Lord of Nothing," he sneered, and down the
+gallery rang the laugh of my cousin Cosimo, and there came, too, a
+ripple of other voices.
+
+Whether to save me from friction with those steely gentlemen who aimed
+at grinding me to powder, whether from other motives, Bianca set her
+finger-tips upon the Duke's white sleeve and moved away with him.
+
+I leaned against the balustrade all numb, watching them depart. I saw
+Cosimo come upon her other side and lean over her as he moved, so slim
+and graceful, beside her own slight, graceful figure. Then I sank to the
+cushions of the seat she had vacated, and stayed there with my misery
+until the night had closed about the place, and the white marble pillars
+looked ghostly and unreal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WARNING
+
+
+I prayed that evening more fervently than I had prayed since quitting
+Monte Orsaro. It was as if all the influences of my youth, which lately
+had been shaken off in the stir of intrigue and of rides that had seemed
+the prelude to battle, were closing round me again.
+
+Even as a woman had lured me once from the ways to which I seemed
+predestined, only to drive me back once more the more frenziedly, so now
+it almost seemed as if again a woman should have lured me to the world
+but to drive me from it again and more resolutely than ever. For I was
+anew upon the edge of a resolve to have done with all human interests
+and to seek the peace and seclusion of the cloister.
+
+And then I bethought me of Gervasio. I would go to him for guidance, as
+I had done aforetime. I would ride on the morrow to seek him out in the
+convent near Piacenza to which he had withdrawn.
+
+I was disturbed at last by the coming of a page to my chamber with the
+announcement that my lord was already at supper.
+
+I had thoughts of excusing myself, but in the end I went.
+
+The repast was spread, as usual, in the banqueting-hall of the castle;
+and about the splendid table was Pier Luigi's company, amounting to
+nigh upon a score in all. The Duke himself sat on Monna Bianca's right,
+whilst on her left was Cosimo.
+
+Heeding little whether I was observed or not, I sank to a vacant place,
+midway down the board, between one of the Duke's pretty young gentlemen
+and one of the ladies of that curious train--a bold-eyed Roman woman,
+whose name, I remember, was Valeria Cesarini, but who matters nothing in
+these pages. Almost facing me sat Giuliana, but I was hardly conscious
+of her, or conscious, indeed, of any save Monna Bianca.
+
+Once or twice Bianca's glance met mine, but it fell away again upon the
+instant. She was very pale, and there were wistful lines about her lips;
+yet her mood was singular. Her eyes had an unnatural sparkle, and ever
+and anon she would smile at what was said to her in half-whispers, now
+by the Duke, now by Cosimo, whilst once or twice she laughed outright.
+Gone was the usual chill reserve with which she hedged herself about to
+distance the hateful advances of Pier Luigi. There were moments now when
+she seemed almost flattered by his vile ogling and adulatory speeches,
+as if she had been one of those brazen ladies of his Court.
+
+It wounded me sorely. I could not understand it, lacking the wit to see
+that this queer mood sprang from the blow I had dealt her, and was the
+outward manifestation of her own pain at the shattering of the illusions
+she had harboured concerning myself.
+
+And so I sat there moodily, gnawing my lip and scowling darkly upon Pier
+Luigi and upon my cousin, who was as assiduous in his attentions as his
+master, and who seemed to be receiving an even greater proportion of her
+favours. One little thing there was to hearten me. Looking at the Lord
+of Pagliano, who sat at the table's head, I observed that his glance
+was dark as it kept watch upon his daughter--that chaste white lily that
+seemed of a sudden to have assumed such wanton airs.
+
+It was a matter that stirred me to battle, and forgotten again were my
+resolves to seek Gervasio, forgotten all notion of abandoning the world
+for the second time. Here was work to be done. Bianca was to be guarded.
+Perhaps it was in this that she would come to have need of me.
+
+Once Cosimo caught my gloomy looks, and he leaned over to speak to the
+Duke, who glanced my way with languid, sneering eyes. He had a score to
+settle with me for the discomfiture he had that morning suffered at my
+hands thanks to Bianca's collaboration. He was a clumsy fool, when all
+is said, and confident now of her support--from the sudden and extreme
+friendliness of her mood--he ventured to let loose a shaft at me in a
+tone that all the table might overhear.
+
+"That cousin of yours wears a very conventual hang-dog look," said he to
+Cosimo. And then to the lady on my right--"Forgive, Valeria," he begged,
+"the scurvy chance that should have sat a shaveling next to you." Lastly
+he turned to me to complete this gross work of offensiveness.
+
+"When do you look, sir, to enter the life monastic for which Heaven has
+so clearly designed you?"
+
+There were some sycophants who tittered at his stupid pleasantry; then
+the table fell silent to hear what answer I should make, and a frown sat
+like a thundercloud upon the brow of Cavalcanti.
+
+I toyed with my goblet, momentarily tempted to fling its contents in
+his pustuled face, and risk the consequences. But I bethought me of
+something else that would make a deadlier missile.
+
+"Alas!" I sighed. "I have abandoned the notion--constrained to it."
+
+He took my bait. "Constrained?" quoth he. "Now what fool did so
+constrain you?"
+
+"No fool, but circumstance," I answered. "It has occurred to me," I
+explained, and I boldly held his glance with my own, "that as a simple
+monk my life would be fraught with perils, seeing that in these times
+even a bishop is not safe."
+
+Saving Bianca (who in her sweet innocence did not so much as dream of
+the existence of such vileness as that to which I was referring and by
+which a saintly man had met his death) I do not imagine that there was
+a single person present who did not understand to what foul crime I
+alluded.
+
+The silence that followed my words was as oppressive as the silence
+which in Nature preludes thunder.
+
+A vivid flame of scarlet had overspread the Duke's countenance. It
+receded, leaving his cheeks a greenish white, even to the mottling
+pimples. Abashed, his smouldering eyes fell away before my bold, defiant
+glance. The fingers of his trembling hand tightened about the slender
+stem of his Venetian goblet, so that it snapped, and there was a gush
+of crimson wine upon the snowy napery. His lips were drawn back--like a
+dog's in the act of snarling--and showed the black stumps of his broken
+teeth. But he made no sound, uttered no word. It was Cosimo who spoke,
+half rising as he did so.
+
+"This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out.
+Suffer me..."
+
+But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my
+cousin's sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him.
+
+"Let be," he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. "It is for
+my Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his
+board."
+
+Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid. "You place a heavy burden on my
+shoulders," said he, "when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me
+against another guest of mine--against one who is all but friendless and
+the son of my own best friend."
+
+"And my worst enemy," cried Pier Luigi hotly.
+
+"That is your excellency's own concern, not mine," said Cavalcanti
+coldly. "But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer
+d'Anguissola's words were ill-judged in such a season. Yet in justice
+I must add that it is not the way of youth to weigh its words too
+carefully; and you gave him provocation. When a man--be he never so
+high--permits himself to taunt another, he would do well to see that he
+is not himself vulnerable to taunts."
+
+Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with
+him.
+
+"My lord," he said, "this is to take sides against me; to endorse the
+affront."
+
+"Then you mistake my intention," rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy
+dignity. "You appeal to me for judgment. And between guests I must hold
+the scales dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either. Of your
+chivalry, my lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else."
+
+It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he
+cared nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency
+that Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of
+Parma might ruffle it unchecked.
+
+Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance. Then his eyes
+turned to Bianca, and his expression softened.
+
+"What says Madonna Bianca?" he inquired, his manner reassuming some
+measure of its courtliness. "Is her judgment as unmercifully level?"
+
+She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the
+tenseness of a situation which she did not understand.
+
+"What say I?" quoth she. "Why, that here is a deal of pother about some
+foolish words."
+
+"And there," cried Pier Luigi, "spoke, I think, not only beauty but
+wisdom--Minerva's utterances from the lips of Diana!"
+
+In glad relief the company echoed his forced laugh, and all sat down
+again, the incident at an end, and my contempt of the Duke increased to
+see him permit such a matter to be so lightly ended.
+
+But that night, when I had retired to my chamber, I was visited by
+Cavalcanti. He was very grave.
+
+"Agostino," he said, "let me implore you to be circumspect, to keep a
+curb upon your bitter tongue. Be patient, boy, as I am--and I have more
+to endure."
+
+"I marvel, sir, that you endure it," answered I, for my mood was
+petulant.
+
+"You will marvel less when you are come to my years--if, indeed, you
+come to them. For if you pursue this course, and strike back when such
+men as Pier Luigi tap you, you will not be likely to see old age. Body
+of Satan! I would that Galeotto were here! If aught should happen to
+you..." He checked, and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"For your father's sake I love you, Agostino, and I speak as one who
+loves you."
+
+"I know, I know!" I cried, seizing his hand in a sudden penitence. "I
+am an ingrate and a fool. And you upheld me nobly at table. Sir, I swear
+that I will not submit you to so much concern again."
+
+He patted my shoulder in a very friendly fashion, and his kindly
+eyes smiled upon me. "If you but promise that--for your own sake,
+Agostino--we need say no more. God send this papal by-blow takes his
+departure soon, for he is as unwelcome here as he is unbidden."
+
+"The foul toad!" said I. "To see him daily, hourly bending over Monna
+Bianca, whispering and ogling--ugh!"
+
+"It offends you, eh? And for that I love you! There. Be circumspect and
+patient, and all will be well. Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure
+insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes."
+
+Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort. And in the
+days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell,
+there was little provocation to do otherwise. The Duke ignored me, and
+all the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo. And
+meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality
+to which they had not been bidden.
+
+Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach
+Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview. Nor
+for that matter was I afforded the opportunity. The Duke and Cosimo
+were ever at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given
+place to his captain, for Cosimo's was the greater assiduity now.
+
+The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon
+hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was
+sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there
+was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we
+danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having
+neither the will nor the art.
+
+One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
+footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice
+behind me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and
+had come to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided
+her, neither addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me
+since the first brazen speech on her arrival.
+
+"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have
+caught the Duke in her net of innocence," said she.
+
+I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling
+face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon
+her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with
+Fifanti.
+
+"You are greatly daring," said I.
+
+"To take in vain the name of her white innocence?" she answered, smiling
+superciliously. And then she grew more serious. "Look, Agostino, we were
+friends once. I would be your friend now."
+
+"It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression."
+
+"Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the
+ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised
+our eyes to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!" She spoke
+sneeringly.
+
+"What is that to you?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing," she answered frankly. "But that another may have raised his
+eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught
+to you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more
+closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message."
+
+"Stay!" I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the
+shadows of the gallery.
+
+She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery
+and insolence.
+
+"Have I moved you into sensibility?" quoth she. "Will you condescend
+to questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed," she added with a
+stinging scorn, "you have every right to do."
+
+"Tell me more precisely what you mean," I begged her, for her words had
+moved me fearfully.
+
+"Gesu!" she exclaimed. "Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels?
+Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's
+health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into
+retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And
+I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I
+think that even a saint should understand me."
+
+With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.
+
+Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I
+did not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a
+shudder her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable
+that in like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her
+to give me such advice.
+
+It was incredible. And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my
+blindness and Cavalcanti's. What precisely Farnese's designs might be I
+could not conceive. It was hard to think that he should dare so much as
+Giuliana more than hinted. It may be that, after all, there was no more
+than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to
+do what she could to avert it.
+
+In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal
+of Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome
+visit to an end.
+
+Indeed, it was so. It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the
+blindest idiot should have perceived.
+
+That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+
+Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti in the little
+anteroom that communicated with his bedroom. My patience was tried, for
+he was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all
+the sounds had died down in the castle and it was known that all had
+retired, and still there was no sign of him.
+
+I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did
+he think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing
+upon this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the
+door opened, and at last he appeared.
+
+When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light
+his face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some
+unusual agitation. He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and
+the hand with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when
+he bade them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.
+
+When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a
+tall, carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet
+in the middle of the room.
+
+But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me,
+and--
+
+"What is it, Agostino?" he inquired.
+
+"I have thought," I answered after a moment's hesitation, "of a means by
+which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end."
+
+And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed
+Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were
+she removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to
+amuse him and he would go his ways.
+
+There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere
+suggestion contained in my faltering words. He looked at me gravely and
+sadly out of that stern face of his.
+
+"I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago," he said. "But who
+was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his
+visit? For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino. It is not he
+who has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca. Were such the
+case, I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the
+Duke of Parma. No, no. My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your
+cousin Cosimo."
+
+I looked at him, amazed. It could not be. I remembered Giuliana's words.
+Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen
+no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure
+in witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom
+I had raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already
+usurped so much that was my own.
+
+"O, you must be mistaken," I cried.
+
+"Mistaken?" he echoed. He shook his head, smiling bitterly. "There is no
+possibility of mistake. I am just come from an interview with the Duke
+and his fine captain. Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's
+hand for Cosimo d'Anguissola."
+
+"And you?" I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
+
+"And I declined the honour," he answered sternly, rising in his
+agitation. "I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon
+the irrevocable quality of my determination; and then this pestilential
+Duke had the effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he
+had the power to compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind
+me that behind him he had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy
+Office. And when I defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of
+the Emperor, he suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the
+Court of the Inquisition."
+
+"My God!" I cried in liveliest fear.
+
+"An idle threat!" he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride
+the room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
+
+"What have I to do with the Holy Office?" he snorted. "But they had
+worse indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that
+Giovanni d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew
+it to have been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of
+Mondolfo, and to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano,
+Mondolfo and Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo
+d'Anguissola was the way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of
+Mondolfo already, should receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the
+Duke."
+
+"Was such indeed your intention?" I asked scarce above a whisper,
+overawed as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and
+wickedness have cost them.
+
+He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking
+up into my face. "It has been my fondest dream, Agostino," he said.
+
+I groaned. "It is a dream that never can be realized now," said I
+miserably.
+
+"Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of
+Mondolfo," he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
+
+I reddened and paled under his glance.
+
+"Nor otherwise," said I. "For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt
+which I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should have remained
+out of this world to which you caused me to return--unless, indeed, my
+present torment is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed,
+I was but brought back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil
+that I have wrought."
+
+He smiled a little. "Is it so with you? Why, then, you afflict yourself
+too soon, boy. You are over-hasty to judge. I am her father, and my
+little Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply. I read her
+better than do you, Agostino. But we will talk of this again."
+
+He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had
+fired me with such exalted hopes. "Meanwhile, there is this Farnese
+dog with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house.
+He threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable
+mind--until I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his
+henchman; and he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought,
+and impudently assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola--in that guelphic
+jackal--I had a husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti."
+
+He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
+
+"The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence," I said. "Let her seek
+shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his
+departure. And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little
+inclination to linger."
+
+He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his
+clear-cut face. "Never!" he snapped. "The thing could have been done two
+weeks ago, when they first came. It would have seemed that the step was
+determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not
+alter my plans. But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is
+not my way.
+
+"Go, Agostino. Let me have the night to think. I know not how to act.
+But we will talk again to-morrow."
+
+It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were
+face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in
+hand.
+
+That I slept little will be readily conceived. I plagued my mind
+with this matter of Cosimo's suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate
+intent--to bring Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it
+one who was devoted to Farnese.
+
+And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had
+said: that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter's mind. My
+hopes rose and tortured me with the suspense they held. Then came to me
+the awful thought that here there might be a measure of retribution,
+and that it might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had
+unconsciously bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this
+pure and holy love.
+
+I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think,
+that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and
+that so we might have speech.
+
+Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me. I had been pacing the terrace
+some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands
+through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw
+her issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
+
+Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her
+without a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
+
+"I was seeking you, Agostino," she said in greeting.
+
+"Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go," said I.
+
+But she was resolutely barring my way. A slow smile parted her scarlet
+lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so
+lovely and now I loathed.
+
+"I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you
+were in no such haste to shun me."
+
+I crimsoned under her insolent regard. "Have you the courage to
+remember?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories," said she.
+
+"Happy?" quoth I.
+
+"Do you deny that we were happy on that morning?--it would be just about
+this time of year, two years ago. And what a change in you since then!
+Heigho! And yet men say that woman is inconstant!"
+
+"I did not know you then," I answered harshly.
+
+"And do you know me now? Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you
+gathered wisdom in the wilderness?"
+
+I looked at her with detestation in my eyes. The effrontery, the ease
+and insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter
+shamelessness and heartlessness.
+
+"The day after... after your husband died," I said, "I saw you in a dell
+near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara. In that hour I knew you."
+
+She bit her lip, then smiled again. "What would you?" answered she.
+"Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger
+of my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous,
+offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and
+dungeons," she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. "Are you,
+of all men, the one to blame me?"
+
+"I have not the right, I know," I answered. "Nor do I blame you more
+than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly--since I
+despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings
+are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to
+go."
+
+"I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino," she answered,
+all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what
+emotions might be hers. "It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of
+Pagliano."
+
+"There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon," said I.
+
+"It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he
+has already heard it from me."
+
+"The thing you told me was false," said I. "It was begotten of fear
+to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the
+circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for
+Cosimo d'Anguissola."
+
+"For Cosimo?" she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.
+"For Cosimo? You are sure of this?" The urgency of her tone was such
+that it held me there and compelled my answer.
+
+"I have it from my lord himself."
+
+She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised
+them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness
+in every line of her face.
+
+"Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?" she mused.
+
+And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. "I
+see it!" she exclaimed. "O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman
+manner of using complaisant husbands."
+
+"Madonna!" I rebuked her angrily--angry to think that anyone should
+conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
+
+"Gesu!" she returned with a shrug. "The thing is plain enough if you
+will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should
+provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once
+she is safely away--as Cosimo's wife..."
+
+"Stop!" I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then
+collecting myself. "Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so
+infamous a compact?"
+
+"Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any
+interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay,
+and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is
+consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is
+no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in
+secret."
+
+I looked at her between doubt and horror.
+
+"Why should you mistrust me?" she asked, answering my look. "I have been
+frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve.
+You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino." And the
+sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. "No, no,
+beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are
+in peril."
+
+I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to
+such interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
+
+"Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off
+and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she
+moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head
+to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you
+shall find, though little was it to have been supposed so then.
+
+I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more
+closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But
+then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that
+her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
+
+I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with
+Cosimo.
+
+"Still pursuing the old love," he greeted me, smiling and jerking his
+head in the direction of Giuliana. "We ever return to it in the end,
+they say; yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord
+Pier Luigi in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant."
+
+I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to
+pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me
+and tapped my shoulder.
+
+"One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my
+hands. Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano
+from your feet. An evil is hanging over you here."
+
+I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
+
+"It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal," said
+I, and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen,
+the colour recede from it.
+
+"What do you mean?" he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by
+the term I had employed. "What things has that trull dared to..."
+
+I cut in. "I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more."
+
+We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us
+the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was
+so fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I
+think.
+
+I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
+
+I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in
+a gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the
+matter thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove
+Bianca not later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to
+arrange it he would ride forth at once.
+
+I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I
+lounged in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and
+considering whether to impart to him the further information I had that
+morning gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring
+myself to tell him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting
+against Bianca. It was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me.
+Indeed I could scarcely bear to think of it.
+
+Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went
+along the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were
+descending the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the
+courtyard.
+
+Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the
+foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel
+cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In
+attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
+
+We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten
+upon my arm.
+
+"What is it?" I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. "These are
+familiars of the Holy Office," he answered me, his tone very grave. In
+that moment the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase
+to meet us, and his face, too, was very solemn.
+
+We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was
+entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
+
+"Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano," said Farnese. "The Holy Office has
+sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been
+seeking for over a year."
+
+"For me?" I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. "What has the
+Holy Office to do with me?"
+
+The leading familiar advanced. "If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there
+is a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to
+answer before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome."
+
+"Sacrilege?" I echoed, entirely bewildered--for my first thought had
+been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti,
+and that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter
+secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had
+evoked its power.
+
+The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was
+a matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I
+well knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.
+
+"Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?" I asked.
+
+"The tribunal will inform you," replied the familiar--a tall, sallow,
+elderly man.
+
+"The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity," said
+Cavalcanti suddenly. "Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are
+not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano."
+
+The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind
+me in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn
+to look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
+
+"You will not be so ill-advised, my lord," he was saying, "as to compel
+us to use force."
+
+"You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it," laughed
+Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. "I have five score men-at-arms
+within these walls, Messer Black-clothes."
+
+The familiar bowed. "That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as
+you say. But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously
+against the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty
+which they are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of
+their just resentment."
+
+Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this
+tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I
+seized his arm.
+
+"It is a trap!" I muttered in his ear. "Beware!"
+
+I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face
+a sly smile--the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come
+venturing from its lair. And I saw the smile perish--to confirm my
+suspicions--when at my whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his
+rashness.
+
+Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
+
+"I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir," said I. "Meanwhile,
+and you, gentlemen--give us leave apart." And I drew the bewildered
+Cavalcanti aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the
+gallery.
+
+"My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake," I implored him. "I am assured that
+here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as
+your valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you
+not see that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against
+you, and that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you?
+Indeed, if they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano,
+had been guilty of contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy
+Inquisition, that bigot Charles V would be the first to deliver you over
+to the ghastly practices of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord,
+that I should tell you this."
+
+"My God!" he groaned in utter misery. "But you, Agostino?"
+
+"There is nothing against me," I answered impatiently. "What sacrilege
+have I ever committed? The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived
+with a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi there. Courage, then, and
+self-restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims. Come, my lord, I will
+ride to Rome with them. And do not doubt that I shall return very soon."
+
+He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in
+every line of a face that was wont to look so resolute. He knew himself
+between the sword and the wall.
+
+"I would that Galeotto were here!" cried that man usually so
+self-reliant. "What will he say to me when he comes? You were a sacred
+charge, boy."
+
+"Say to him that I will be returning shortly--which must be true. Come,
+then. You may serve me this way. The other way you will but have to
+endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is
+precisely what they seek."
+
+He braced himself at the thought of Bianca. We turned, and in silence
+we paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that
+Cavalcanti's face had grown very haggard.
+
+"I yield me, sir," I said to the familiar.
+
+"A wise decision," sneered the Duke.
+
+"I trust you'll find it so, my lord," I answered, sneering too.
+
+They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti,
+I mounted and my funereal escort closed about me. We rode across the
+courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the
+familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the
+stoutest-hearted man. As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on
+the morning air:
+
+"Agostino!"
+
+Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
+
+I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing
+in the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after
+me, her arms outheld. And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank
+with a little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
+
+I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and
+I prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to
+pay for all the sins of his recreant life.
+
+And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned
+to tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry
+of Bianca's made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the
+Holy Office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PAPAL BULL
+
+
+And now, that you may understand to the full the thing that happened,
+it is necessary that I should relate it here in its proper sequence,
+although that must entail my own withdrawal for a time from pages upon
+which too long I have intruded my own doings and thoughts and feelings.
+
+I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share
+in it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be
+a witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail
+of what this one said and how that one looked.
+
+I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim
+escort, and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the
+door of my dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into
+the courtyard of Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
+
+He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was
+witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging
+in the gallery at the time.
+
+Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing
+of the Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma,
+whilst the Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms
+garrisoned in Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free
+company.
+
+But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from
+suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved
+himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings
+to the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense,
+and craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
+
+The condottiero swung down from his saddle unaided--a thing which
+he could do even when full-armed--and stood before Farnese, a grim,
+dust-stained figure, with a curious smile twisting his scarred face.
+
+"Why," said he, in answer, "I have been upon business that concerns your
+magnificence somewhat closely."
+
+And with Falcone at his heels he advanced, the horses relinquished to
+the grooms who had hastened forward.
+
+"Upon business that concerns me?" quoth the Duke, intrigued.
+
+"Why, yes," said Galeotto, who stood now face to face with Farnese at
+the foot of the steps up which the Duke's attendants were straggling.
+"I have been recruiting forces, and since one of these days your
+magnificence is to give me occupation, you will see that the matter
+concerns you."
+
+Above leaned Cavalcanti, his face grey and haggard, without the heart to
+relish the wicked humour of Galeotto that could make jests for his own
+entertainment. True there was also Falcone to overhear, appreciate, and
+grin under cover of his great brown hand.
+
+"Does this mean that you are come to your senses on the score of a
+stipend, Ser Galeotto?" quoth the Duke.
+
+"I am not a trader out of the Giudecca to haggle over my wares," replied
+the burly condottiero. "But I nothing doubt that your magnificence and I
+will come to an understanding at the last."
+
+"Five thousand ducats yearly is my offer," said Farnese, "provided that
+you bring three hundred lances."
+
+"Ah, well!" said Galeotto softly, "you may come to regret one of these
+days, highness, that you did not think well to pay me the price I ask."
+
+"Regret?" quoth the Duke, with a frown of displeasure at so much
+frankness.
+
+"When you see me engaged in the service of some other," Galeotto
+explained. "You need a condottiero, my lord; and you may come to need
+one even more than you do now."
+
+"I have the Lord of Mondolfo," said the Duke.
+
+Galeotto stared at him with round eyes. "The Lord of Mondolfo?" quoth
+he, intentionally uncomprehending.
+
+"You have not heard? Why, here he stands." And he waved a jewelled hand
+towards Cosimo, a handsome figure in green and blue, standing nearest to
+Farnese.
+
+Galeotto looked at this Anguissola, and his brow grew very black.
+
+"So," he said slowly, "you are the Lord of Mondolfo, eh? I think you are
+very brave."
+
+"I trust my valour will not be lacking when the proof of it is needed,"
+answered Cosimo haughtily, feeling the other's unfriendly mood and
+responding to it.
+
+"It cannot," said Galeotto, "since you have the courage to assume that
+title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser
+Cosimo. Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was
+a truly miserable end. His father before him was poisoned by his best
+friend, and as for the last who legitimately bore that title--why, none
+can say that the poor lad was fortunate."
+
+"The last who legitimately bore that title?" cried Cosimo, very ruffled.
+"I think, sir, it is your aim to affront me."
+
+"And what is more," continued the condottiero, as if Cosimo had not
+spoken, "not only are the lords of Mondolfo unlucky in themselves, but
+they are a source of ill luck to those they serve. Giovanni's father had
+but taken service with Cesare Borgia when the latter's ruin came at the
+hands of Pope Julius II. What Giovanni's own friendship cost his friends
+none knows better than your highness. So that, when all is said, I think
+you had better look about you for another condottiero, magnificent."
+
+The magnificent stood gnawing his beard and brooding darkly, for he
+was a grossly superstitious fellow who studied omens and dabbled in
+horoscopes, divinations, and the like. And he was struck by the thing
+that Galeotto said. He looked at Cosimo darkly. But Cosimo laughed.
+
+"Who believes such old wives' tales? Not I, for one."
+
+"The more fool you!" snapped the Duke.
+
+"Indeed, indeed," Galeotto applauded. "A disbelief in omens can but
+spring from an ignorance of such matters. You should study them, Messer
+Cosimo. I have done so, and I tell you that the lordship of Mondolfo
+is unlucky to all dark-complexioned men. And when such a man has a mole
+under the left ear as you have--in itself a sign of death by hanging--it
+is well to avoid all risks."
+
+"Now that is very strange!" muttered the Duke, much struck by this
+whittling down of Cosimo's chances, whilst Cosimo shrugged impatiently
+and smiled contemptuously. "You seem to be greatly versed in these
+matters, Ser Galeotto," added Farnese.
+
+"He who would succeed in whatever he may undertake should qualify
+to read all signs," said Galeotto sententiously. "I have sought this
+knowledge."
+
+"Do you see aught in me that you can read?" inquired the Duke in all
+seriousness.
+
+Galeotto considered him a moment without any trace in his eyes of the
+wicked mockery that filled his soul. "Why," he answered slowly, "not in
+your own person, magnificent--leastways, not upon so brief a glance. But
+since you ask me, I have lately been considering the new coinage of your
+highness."
+
+"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the Duke, all eagerness, whilst several of his
+followers came crowding nearer--for all the world is interested in
+omens. "What do you read there?"
+
+"Your fate, I think."
+
+"My fate?"
+
+"Have you a coin upon you?"
+
+Farnese produced a gold ducat, fire-new from the mint. The condottiero
+took it and placed his finger upon the four letters P L A C--the
+abbreviation of "Placentia" in the inscription.
+
+"P--L--A--C," he spelled. "That contains your fate, magnificent, and
+you may read it for yourself." And he returned the coin to the Duke, who
+stared at the letters foolishly and then at this reader of omens.
+
+"But what is the meaning of PLAC?" he asked, and he had paled a little
+with excitement.
+
+"I have a feeling that it is a sign. I cannot say more. I can but point
+it out to you, my lord, and leave the deciphering of it to yourself, who
+are more skilled than most men in such matters. Have I your excellency's
+leave to go doff this dusty garb?" he concluded.
+
+"Ay, go, sir," answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted
+brows over the coin that bore his image.
+
+"Come, Falcone," said Galeotto, and with his equerry at his heels he set
+his foot on the first step.
+
+Cosimo leaned forward, a sneer on his white hawk-face, "I trust, Ser
+Galeotto, that you are a better condottiero than a charlatan."
+
+"And you, sir," said Galeotto, smiling his sweetest in return, "are, I
+trust, a better charlatan than a condottiero."
+
+He went up the stairs, the gaudy throng making way before him, and he
+came at last to the top, where stood the Lord of Pagliano awaiting
+him, a great trouble in his eyes. They clasped hands in silence, and
+Cavalcanti went in person to lead his guest to his apartments.
+
+"You have not a happy air," said Galeotto as they went. "And, Body of
+God! it is no matter for marvel considering the company you keep. How
+long has the Farnese beast been here?"
+
+"His visit is now in its third week," said Cavalcanti, answering
+mechanically.
+
+Galeotto swore in sheer surprise. "By the Host! And what keeps him?"
+
+Cavalcanti shrugged and let his arms fall to his sides. To Galeotto this
+proud, stern baron seemed most oddly dispirited.
+
+"I see that we must talk," he said. "Things are speeding well and
+swiftly now," he added, dropping his voice. "But more of that presently.
+I have much to tell you."
+
+When they had reached the chamber that was Galeotto's, and the doors
+were closed and Falcone was unbuckling his master's spurs--"Now for my
+news," said the condottiero. "But first, to spare me repetitions, let us
+have Agostino here. Where is he?"
+
+The look on Cavalcanti's face caused Galeotto to throw up his head like
+a spirited animal that scents danger.
+
+"Where is he?" he repeated, and old Falcone's fingers fell idle upon the
+buckle on which they were engaged.
+
+Cavalcanti's answer was a groan. He flung his long arms to the ceiling,
+as if invoking Heaven's aid; then he let them fall again heavily, all
+strength gone out of them.
+
+Galeotto stood an instant looking at him and turning very white.
+Suddenly he stepped forward, leaving Falcone upon his knees.
+
+"What is this?" he said, his voice a rumble of thunder. "Where is the
+boy? I say."
+
+The Lord of Pagliano could not meet the gaze of those steel coloured
+eyes.
+
+"O God!" he groaned. "How shall I tell you?"
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Galeotto, his voice hard.
+
+"No, no--not dead. But... But..." The plight of one usually so strong, so
+full of mastery and arrogance, was pitiful.
+
+"But what?" demanded the condottiero. "Gesu! Am I a woman, or a man
+without sorrows, that you need to stand hesitating? Whatever it may be,
+speak, then, and tell me."
+
+"He is in the clutches of the Holy Office," answered Cavalcanti
+miserably.
+
+Galeotto looked at him, his pallor increasing. Then he sat down
+suddenly, and, elbows on knees, he took his head in his hands and spoke
+no word for a spell, during which time Falcone, still kneeling, looked
+from one to the other in an agony of apprehension and impatience to hear
+more.
+
+Neither noticed the presence of the equerry; nor would it have mattered
+if they had, for he was trusty as steel, and they had no secrets from
+him.
+
+At last, having gained some measure of self-control, Galeotto begged to
+know what had happened, and Cavalcanti related the event.
+
+"What could I do? What could I do?" he cried when he had finished.
+
+"You let them take him?" said Galeotto, like a man who repeats the thing
+he has been told, because he cannot credit it. "You let them take him?"
+
+"What alternative had I?" groaned Cavalcanti, his face ashen and seared
+with pain.
+
+"There is that between us, Ettore, that... that will not let me credit
+this, even though you tell it me."
+
+And now the wretched Lord of Pagliano began to use the very arguments
+that I had used to him. He spoke of Cosimo's suit of his daughter, and
+how the Duke sought to constrain him to consent to the alliance. He
+urged that in this matter of the Holy Office was a trap set for him to
+place him in Farnese's power.
+
+"A trap?" roared the condottiero, leaping up. "What trap? Where is this
+trap? You had five score men-at-arms under your orders here--three score
+of them my own men, each one of whom would have laid down his life for
+me, and you allowed the boy to be taken hence by six rascals from the
+Holy Office, intimidated by a paltry score of troopers that rode with
+this filthy Duke!"
+
+"Nay, nay--not that," the other protested. "Had I dared to raise a
+finger I should have brought myself within the reach of the Inquisition
+without benefiting Agostino. That was the trap, as Agostino himself
+perceived. It was he himself who urged me not to intervene, but to let
+them take him hence, since there was no possible charge which the Holy
+Office could prefer against him."
+
+"No charge!" cried Galeotto, with a withering scorn. "Did villainy ever
+want for invention? And this trap? Body of God, Ettore, am I to account
+you a fool after all these years? What trap was there that could be
+sprung upon you as things stood? Why, man, the game was in your hands
+entirely. Here was this Farnese in your power. What better hostage than
+that could you have held? You had but to whistle your war-dogs to
+heel and seize his person, demanding of the Pope his father a plenary
+absolution and indemnity for yourself and for Agostino from any
+prosecutions of the Holy Office ere you surrendered him. And had they
+attempted to employ force against you, you could have held them in check
+by threatening to hang the Duke unless the parchments you demanded were
+signed and delivered to you. My God, Ettore! Must I tell you this?"
+
+Cavalcanti sank to a seat and took his head in his hands.
+
+"You are right," he said. "I deserve all your reproaches. I have been a
+fool. Worse--I have wanted for courage." And then, suddenly, he reared
+his head again, and his glance kindled. "But it is not yet too late," he
+cried, and started up. "It is still time!"
+
+"Time!" sneered Galeotto. "Why, the boy is in their hands. It is hostage
+for hostage now, a very different matter. He is lost--irretrievably
+lost!" he ended, groaning. "We can but avenge him. To save him is beyond
+our power."
+
+"No," said Cavalcanti. "It is not. I am a dolt, a dotard; and I have
+been the cause of it. Then I shall pay the price."
+
+"What price?" quoth the condottiero, pondering the other with an eye
+that held no faintest gleam of hope.
+
+"Within an hour you shall have in your hands the necessary papers to set
+Agostino at liberty; and you shall carry them yourself to Rome. It is
+the amend I owe you. It shall be made."
+
+"But how is it possible?"
+
+"It is possible, and it shall be done. And when it is done you may count
+upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential
+Duke in ruin."
+
+He strode to the door, his step firm once more and his face set, though
+it was very grey. "I will leave you now. But you may count upon the
+fulfilment of my promise."
+
+He went out, leaving Galeotto and Falcone alone, and the condottiero
+flung himself into a chair and sat there moodily, deep in thought, still
+in his dusty garments and with no thought for changing them. Falcone
+stood by the window, looking out upon the gardens and not daring to
+intrude upon his master's mood.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti found them a hour later when he returned. He brought
+a parchment, to which was appended a great seal bearing the Pontifical
+arms. He thrust it into Galeotto's hand.
+
+"There," he said, "is the discharge of the debt which through my
+weakness and folly I have incurred."
+
+Galeotto looked at the parchment, then at Cavalcanti, and then at the
+parchment once more. It was a papal bull of plenary pardon and indemnity
+to me.
+
+"How came you by this?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Is not Farnese the Pope's son?" quoth Cavalcanti scornfully.
+
+"But upon what terms was it conceded? If it involves your honour, your
+life, or your liberty, here's to make an end of it." And he held
+it across in his hands as if to tear it, looking up at the Lord of
+Pagliano.
+
+"It involves none of these," the latter answered steadily. "You had best
+set out at once. The Holy Office can be swift to act."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+
+I was haled from my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figures
+that looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their heads
+and faces covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for their
+eyes. Seen by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried to
+that subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, their
+very hands tucked away into the wide-mouthed sleeves of their habits,
+looked spectral and lurid--horrific messengers of death.
+
+By chill, dark passages of stone, through which our steps reverberated,
+they brought me to a pillared, vaulted underground chamber, lighted by
+torches in iron brackets on the walls.
+
+On a dais stood an oaken writing-table bearing two massive wax tapers
+and a Crucifix. At this table sat a portly, swarthy-visaged man in the
+black robes of the order of St. Dominic. Immediately below and flanking
+him on either hand sat two mute cowled figures to do the office of
+amanuenses.
+
+Away on the right, where the shadows were but faintly penetrated by the
+rays of the torches, stood an engine of wood somewhat of the size and
+appearance of the framework of a couch, but with stout straps of leather
+to pinion the patient, and enormous wooden screws upon which the frame
+could be made to lengthen or contract. From the ceiling grey ropes
+dangled from pulleys, like the tentacles of some dread monster of
+cruelty.
+
+One glance into that gloomy part of the chamber was enough for me.
+
+Repressing a shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept my
+eyes upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors. And he was
+horror enough for any man in my circumstances to envisage.
+
+He was very fat, with a shaven, swarthy face and the dewlap of an ox.
+In that round fleshliness his eyes were sunken like two black buttons,
+malicious through their very want of expression. His mouth was
+loose-lipped and gluttonous and cruel.
+
+When he spoke, the deep rumbling quality of his voice was increased by
+the echoes of that vaulted place.
+
+"What is your name?" he said.
+
+"I am Agostino d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and..."
+
+"Pass over your titles," he boomed. "The Holy Office takes no account of
+worldly rank. What is your age?"
+
+
+"I am in my twenty-first year."
+
+"Benedicamus Dominum," he commented, though I could not grasp the
+appositeness of the comment. "You stand accused, Agostino d'Anguissola,
+of sacrilege and of defiling holy things. What have you to say? Do you
+confess your guilt?"
+
+"I am so far from confessing it," I answered, "that I have yet to
+learn what is the nature of the sacrilege with which I am charged. I am
+conscious of no such sin. Far from it, indeed..."
+
+"You shall be informed," he interrupted, imposing silence upon me by a
+wave of his fat hand; and heaving his vast bulk sideways--"Read him the
+indictment," he bade one of the amanuenses.
+
+From the depths of a vizored cowl came a thin, shrill voice:
+
+"The Holy Office has knowledge that Agostino d'Anguissola did for a
+space of some six months, during the winter of the year of Our Blessed
+Lord 1544, and the spring of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1545, pursue
+a fraudulent and sacrilegious traffic, adulterating, for moneys which
+he extorted from the poor and the faithful, things which are holy, and
+adapting them to his own base purposes. It is charged against him
+that in a hermitage on Monte Orsaro he did claim for an image of St.
+Sebastian that it was miraculous, that it had power to heal suffering
+and that miraculously it bled from its wounds each year during Passion
+Week, whence it resulted that pilgrimages were made to this false shrine
+and great store of alms was collected by the said Agostino d'Anguissola,
+which moneys he appropriated to his own purposes. It is further known
+that ultimately he fled the place, fearing discovery, and that after his
+flight the image was discovered broken and the cunning engine by which
+this diabolical sacrilege was perpetrated was revealed."
+
+Throughout the reading, the fleshy eyes of the inquisitor had been
+steadily, inscrutably regarding me. He passed a hand over his pendulous
+chin, as the thin voice faded into silence.
+
+"You have heard," said he.
+
+"I have heard a tangle of falsehood," answered I. "Never was truth more
+untruly told than this."
+
+The beady eyes vanished behind narrowing creases of fat; and yet I knew
+that they were still regarding me. Presently they appeared again.
+
+"Do you deny that the image contained this hideous engine of fraud?"
+
+"I do not," I answered.
+
+"Set it down," he eagerly bade one of the amanuenses. "He confesses thus
+much." And then to me--"Do you deny that you occupied that hermitage
+during the season named?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Set it down," he said again. "What, then, remains?" he asked me.
+
+"It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud. The trickster was a
+pretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I was
+present. I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in the
+miraculous image, refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested to
+me, to credit that any man could have dared so vile and sacrilegious
+a thing. In the end, when it was broken and its fraud discovered, I
+quitted that ghastly shrine of Satan's in horror and disgust."
+
+There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face. "That is the obvious
+defence," he said slowly. "But it does not explain the appropriation of
+the moneys."
+
+"I appropriated none," I cried angrily. That is the foulest lie of all."
+
+"Do you deny that alms were made?"
+
+"Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware. A
+vessel of baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of the
+faithful. It had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a part
+of these alms among the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build a
+bridge over the Bagnanza torrent, which was greatly needed."
+
+"Well, well?" quoth he. "And when you left you took with you the moneys
+that had been collected?"
+
+"I did not," I answered. "I gave the matter no thought. When I left
+I took nothing with me--not so much as the habit I had worn in that
+hermitage."
+
+There was a pause. Then he spoke slowly. "Such is not the evidence
+before the Holy Office."
+
+"What evidence?" I cried, breaking in upon his speech. "Where is my
+accuser? Set me face to face with him."
+
+Slowly he shook his huge head with its absurd fringe of greasy locks
+about the tonsured scalp--that symbol of the Crown of Thorns.
+
+"You must surely know that such is not the way of the Holy Office. In
+its wisdom this tribunal holds that to produce delators would be to
+subject them perhaps to molestation, and thus dry up the springs of
+knowledge and information which it now enjoys. So that your request
+is idle as idle as is the attempt at defence that you have made, the
+falsehoods with which you have sought to clog the wheels of justice."
+
+"Falsehood, sir monk?" quoth I, so fiercely that one of my attendants
+set a restraining hand upon my arm.
+
+The beady eyes vanished and reappeared, and they considered me
+impassively.
+
+"Your sin, Agostino d'Anguissola," said he in his booming, level voice,
+"is the most hideous that the wickedness of man could conceive or
+diabolical greed put into execution. It is the sin that more than any
+other closes the door to mercy. It is the offence of Simon Mage, and
+it is to be expiated only through the gates of death. You shall return
+hence to your cell, and when the door closes upon you, it closes upon
+you for all time in life, nor shall you ever see your fellow-man again.
+There hunger and thirst shall be your executioners, slowly to deprive
+you of a life of which you have not known how to make better use.
+Without light or food or drink shall you remain there until you die.
+This is the punishment for such sacrilege as yours."
+
+I could not believe it. I stood before him what time he mouthed out
+those horrible and emotionless words. He paused a moment, and again came
+that broad gesture of his that stroked mouth and chin. Then he resumed:
+
+"So much for your body. There remains your soul. In its infinite mercy,
+the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in this
+life, and that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell.
+Therefore it urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowal
+ere you go hence. Confess, then, my son, and save your soul."
+
+"Confess?" I echoed. "Confess to a falsehood? I have told you the truth
+of this matter. I tell you that in all the world there is none less
+prone to sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout and
+faithful. These are lies which have been uttered to my hurt. In dooming
+me you doom an innocent man. Be it so. I do not know that I have found
+the world so delectable a place as to quit it with any great regret.
+My blood be upon your own heads and upon this iniquitous and monstrous
+tribunal. But spare yourselves at least the greater offence of asking my
+confession of a falsehood."
+
+The little eyes had vanished. The face grew very evil, stirred at last
+into animosity by my denunciation of that court. Then the inscrutable
+mask slipped once more over that odious countenance.
+
+He took up a little mallet, and struck a gong that stood beside him.
+
+I heard a creaking of hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to my
+right, where I had perceived no door. Two men came forth--brawny,
+muscular, bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoats
+cut deep at the neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked. The
+foremost carried a thong of leather in his hands.
+
+"The hoist," said the inquisitor shortly.
+
+The men advanced towards me and came to replace the familiars between
+whom I had been standing. Each seized an arm, and they held me so. I
+made no resistance.
+
+"Will you confess?" the inquisitor demanded. "There is still time to save
+yourself from torture."
+
+But already the torture had commenced, for the very threat of it is
+known as the first degree. I was in despair. Death I could suffer. But
+under torments I feared that my strength might fail. I felt my flesh
+creeping and tightening upon my body, which had grown very cold with
+the awful chill of fear; my hair seemed to bristle and stiffen until I
+thought that I could feel each separate thread of it.
+
+"I swear to you that I have spoken the truth," I cried desperately. "I
+swear it by the sacred image of Our Redeemer standing there before you."
+
+"Shall we believe the oath of an unbeliever attainted of sacrilege?" he
+grumbled, and he almost seemed to sneer.
+
+"Believe or not," I answered. "But believe this--that one day you shall
+stand face to face with a Judge Whom there is no deceiving, to answer
+for the abomination that you make of justice in His Holy Name. Let loose
+against me your worst cruelties, then; they shall be as caresses to the
+torments that will be loosed against you when your turn for Judgment
+comes."
+
+"To the hoist with him," he commanded, stretching an arm towards the
+grey tentacle-like ropes. "We must soften his heart and break the
+diabolical pride that makes him persevere in blasphemy."
+
+They led me aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew down
+the ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a level
+with my wrists. And this was torture of the second degree--to see its
+imminence.
+
+"Will you confess?" boomed the inquisitor's voice. I made him no answer.
+
+"Strip and attach him," he commanded.
+
+The executioners laid hold of me, and in the twinkling of an eye I stood
+naked to the waist. I caught my lips in my teeth as the ropes were
+being adjusted to my wrists, and as thus I suffered torture of the third
+degree.
+
+"Will you confess?" came again the question.
+
+And scarcely had it been put--for the last time, as I well knew--than
+the door was flung open, and a young man in black sprang into the
+chamber, and ran to thrust a parchment before the inquisitor.
+
+The inquisitor made a sign to the executioners to await his pleasure.
+
+I stood with throbbing pulses, and waited, instinctively warned that
+this concerned me. The inquisitor took the parchment, considered its
+seals and then the writing upon it.
+
+That done he set it down and turned to face us.
+
+"Release him," he bade the executioners, whereat I felt as I would faint
+in the intensity of this reaction.
+
+When they had done his bidding, the Dominican beckoned me forward. I
+went, still marvelling.
+
+"See," he said, "how inscrutable are the Divine ways, and how truth must
+in the end prevail. Your innocence is established, after all, since the
+Holy Father himself has seen cause to intervene to save you. You are
+at liberty. You are free to depart and to go wheresoever you will. This
+bull concerns you." And he held it out to me.
+
+My mind moved through these happenings as a man moves through a dense
+fog, faltering and hesitating at every step. I took the parchment and
+considered it. Satisfied as to its nature, however mystified as to how
+the Pope had come to intervene, I folded the document and thrust it into
+my belt.
+
+Then the familiars of the Holy Office assisted me to resume my garments;
+and all was done now in utter silence, and for my own part in the same
+mental and dream-like confusion.
+
+At length the inquisitor waved a huge hand doorwards. "Ite!" he said,
+and added, whilst his raised hand seemed to perform a benedictory
+gesture--"Pax Domini sit tecum."
+
+"Et cum spiritu tuo," I replied mechanically, as, turning, I stumbled
+out of that dread place in the wake of the messenger who had brought the
+bull, and who went ahead to guide me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE RETURN
+
+
+Above in the blessed sunlight, which hurt my eyes--for I had not seen
+it for a full week--I found Galeotto awaiting me in a bare room; and
+scarcely was I aware of his presence than his great arms went round me
+and enclasped me so fervently that his corselet almost hurt my breast,
+and brought back as in a flash a poignant memory of another man fully as
+tall, who had held me to him one night many years ago, and whose armour,
+too, had hurt me in that embrace.
+
+Then he held me at arms' length and considered me, and his steely eyes
+were blurred and moist. He muttered something to the familiar, linked
+his arm through mine and drew me away, down passages, through doors, and
+so at last into the busy Roman street.
+
+We went in silence by ways that were well known to him but in which
+I should assuredly have lost myself, and so we came at last to a fair
+tavern--the Osteria del Sole--near the Tower of Nona.
+
+His horse was stalled here, and a servant led the way above-stairs to
+the room that he had hired.
+
+How wrong had I not been, I reflected, to announce before the
+Inquisition that I should have no regrets in leaving this world. How
+ungrateful was that speech, considering this faithful one who loved me
+for my father's sake! And was there not Bianca, who, surely--if her last
+cry, wrung from her by anguish, contained the truth--must love me for my
+own?
+
+How sweet the revulsion that now came upon me as I sank into a chair
+by the window, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that truly happy
+moment in which the grey shadow of death had been lifted from me.
+
+Servants bustled in, to spread the board with the choice meats that
+Galeotto had ordered, and great baskets of luscious fruits and flagons
+of red Puglia wine; and soon we seated ourselves to the feast.
+
+But ere I began to eat, I asked Galeotto how this miracle had been
+wrought; what magic powers he wielded that even the Holy Office must
+open its doors at his bidding. With a glance at the servants who
+attended us, he bade me eat, saying that we should talk anon. And as
+my reaction had brought a sharp hunger in its train, I fell to with the
+best will in all the world, and from broth to figs there were few words
+between us.
+
+At last, our goblets charged and the servants with-drawn, I repeated my
+inquiry.
+
+"The magic is not mine," said Galeotto. "It is Cavalcanti's. It was he
+who obtained this bull."
+
+And with that he set himself briefly to relate the matters that already
+are contained here concerning that transaction, but the minuter details
+of which I was later to extract from Falcone. And as he proceeded with
+his narrative I felt myself growing cold again with apprehension, just
+as I had grown cold that morning in the hands of the executioners. Until
+at last, seeing me dead-white, Galeotto checked to inquire what ailed
+me.
+
+"What--what was the price that Cavalcanti paid for this?" I inquired in
+answer.
+
+"I could not glean it, nor did I stay to insist, for there was haste.
+He assured me that the thing had been accomplished without hurt to his
+honour, life, or liberty; and with that I was content, and spurred for
+Rome."
+
+"And you have never since thought what the price was that Cavalcanti
+might have paid?"
+
+He looked at me with troubled eyes. "I confess that in this matter the
+satisfaction of coming to your salvation has made me selfish. I have had
+thoughts for nothing else."
+
+I groaned, and flung out my arms across the table. "He has paid such a
+price," I said, "that a thousand times sooner would I that you had left
+me where I was."
+
+He leaned forward, frowning darkly. "What do you mean?" he cried.
+
+And then I told him what I feared; told him how Farnese had sued
+for Bianca's hand for Cosimo; how proudly and finally Cavalcanti had
+refused; how the Duke had insisted that he would remain at Pagliano
+until my lord changed his mind; how I had learned from Giuliana the
+horrible motive that urged the Duke to press for that marriage.
+
+Lastly--"And that is the price he consented to pay," I cried wildly.
+"His daughter--that sweet virgin--was the price! And at this hour,
+maybe, the price is paid and that detestable bargain consummated. O,
+Galeotto! Galeotto! Why was I not left to rot in that dungeon of the
+Inquisition--since I could have died happily, knowing naught of this?"
+
+"By the Blood of God, boy! Do you imply that I had knowledge? Do you
+suggest that I would have bought any life at such a price?"
+
+"No, no!" I answered. "I know that you did not--that you could
+not..." And then I leaped to my feet. "And we sit talking here, whilst
+this... whilst this... O God!" I sobbed. "We may yet be in time. To horse,
+then! Let us away!"
+
+He, too, came to his feet. "Ay, you are right. It but remains to remedy
+the evil. Come, then. Anger shall mend my spent strength. It can be
+done in three days. We will ride as none ever rode yet since the world
+began."
+
+And we did--so desperately that by the morning of the third day,
+which was a Sunday, we were in Forli (having crossed the Apennines at
+Arcangelo) and by that same evening in Bologna. We had not slept and
+we had scarcely rested since leaving Rome. We were almost dead from
+weariness.
+
+Since such was my own case, what must have been Galeotto's? He was
+of iron, it is true. But consider that he had ridden this way at
+as desperate a pace already, to save me from the clutches of the
+Inquisition; and that, scarce rested, he was riding north again.
+Consider this, and you will not marvel that his weariness conquered him
+at last.
+
+At the inn at Bologna where we dismounted, we found old Falcone awaiting
+us. He had set out with his master to ride to Rome. But being himself
+saddle-worn at the time, he had been unable to proceed farther than
+this, and here Galeotto in his fierce impatience had left him, pursuing
+his way alone.
+
+Here, then, we found the equerry again, consumed by anxiety. He leapt
+forward to greet me, addressing me by the old title of Madonnino which
+I loved to hear from him, however much that title might otherwise arouse
+harsh and gloomy memories.
+
+Here at Bologna Galeotto announced that he would be forced to rest, and
+we slept for three hours--until night had closed in. We were shaken out
+of our slumbers by the host as he had been ordered; but even then I lay
+entranced, my limbs refusing their office, until the memory of what was
+at issue acted like a spur upon me, and caused me to fling my weariness
+aside as if it had been a cloak.
+
+Galeotto, however, was in a deplorable case. He could not move a limb.
+He was exhausted--utterly and hopelessly exhausted with fatigue and
+want of sleep. Falcone and I pulled him to his feet between us; but he
+collapsed again, unable to stand.
+
+"I am spent," he muttered. "Give me twelve hours--twelve hours' sleep,
+Agostino, and I'll ride with you to the Devil."
+
+I groaned and cursed in one. "Twelve hours!" I cried. "And she... I can't
+wait, Galeotto. I must ride on alone."
+
+He lay on his back and stared up at me, and his eyes had a glassy stare.
+Then he roused himself by an effort, and raised himself upon his elbow.
+
+"That is it, boy--ride on alone. Take Falcone. Listen, there are three
+score men of mine at Pagliano who will follow you to Hell at a word that
+Falcone shall speak to them from me. About it, then, and save her. But
+wait, boy! Do no violence to Farnese, if you can help it."
+
+"But if I can't?" I asked.
+
+"If you can't--no matter. But endeavour not to offer him any hurt! Leave
+that to me--anon when all is ripe for it. To-day it would be premature,
+and... and we... we should be... crushed by the..." His speech trailed off
+into incoherent mutterings; his eyelids dropped, and he was fast asleep
+again.
+
+Ten minutes later we were riding north again, and all that night we
+rode, along the endless Aemilian Way, pausing for no more than a draught
+of wine from time to time, and munching a loaf as we rode. We crossed
+the Po, and kept steadily on, taking fresh horses when we could, until
+towards sunset a turn in the road brought Pagliano into our view--grey
+and lichened on the crest of its smooth emerald hill.
+
+The dusk was falling and lights began to gleam from some of the castle
+windows when we brought up in the shadow of the gateway.
+
+A man-at-arms lounged out of the guardhouse to inquire our business.
+
+"Is Madonna Bianca wed yet?" was the breathless greeting I gave him.
+
+He peered at me, and then at Falcone, and he swore in some surprise.
+
+"Well, returned my lord! Madonna Bianca? The nuptials were celebrated
+to-day. The bride has gone."
+
+"Gone?" I roared. "Gone whither, man?"
+
+"Why, to Piacenza--to my Lord Cosimo's palace there. They set out some
+three hours since."
+
+"Where is your lord?" I asked him, flinging myself from the saddle.
+
+"Within doors, most noble."
+
+How I found him, or by what ways I went to do so, are things that are
+effaced completely from my memory. But I know that I came upon him in
+the library. He was sitting hunched in a great chair, his face ashen,
+his eyes fevered. At sight of me--the cause, however innocent, of all
+this evil--his brows grew dark, and his eyes angry. If he had reproaches
+for me, I gave him no time to utter them, but hurled him mine.
+
+"What have you done, sir?" I demanded. "By what right did you do this
+thing? By what right did you make a sacrifice of that sweet dove?
+Did you conceive me so vile as to think that I should ever owe you
+gratitude--that I should ever do aught but abhor the deed, abhor all who
+had a hand in it, abhor the very life itself purchased for me at such a
+cost?"
+
+He cowered before my furious wrath; for I must have seemed terrific as
+I stood thundering there, my face wild, my eyes bloodshot, half mad from
+pain and rage and sleeplessness.
+
+"And do you know what you have done?" I went on. "Do you know to what
+you have sold her? Must I tell you?"
+
+And I told him, in a dozen brutal words that brought him to his feet,
+the lion in him roused at last, his eyes ablaze.
+
+"We must after them," I urged. "We must wrest her from these beasts,
+and make a widow of her for the purpose. Galeotto's lances are below and
+they will follow me. You may bring what more you please. Come, sir--to
+horse!"
+
+He sprang forward with no answer beyond a muttered prayer that we might
+come in time.
+
+"We must," I answered fiercely, and ran madly from the room, along
+the gallery and down the stairs, shouting and raging like a maniac,
+Cavalcanti following me.
+
+Within ten minutes, Galeotto's three score men and another score of
+those who garrisoned Pagliano for Cavalcanti were in the saddle and
+galloping hell-for-leather to Piacenza. Ahead on fresh horses went
+Falcone and I, the Lord of Pagliano spurring beside me and pestering me
+with questions as to the source of my knowledge.
+
+Our great fear was lest we should find the gates of Piacenza closed on
+our arrival. But we covered the ten miles in something under an hour,
+and the head of our little column was already through the Fodesta Gate
+when the first hour of night rang out from the Duomo, giving the signal
+for the closing of the gates.
+
+The officer in charge turned out to view so numerous a company, and
+challenged us to stand. But I flung him the answer that we were the
+Black Bands of Ser Galeotto and that we rode by order of the Duke, with
+which perforce he had to be content; for we did not stay for more and
+were too numerous to be detained by such meagre force as he commanded.
+
+Up the dark street we swept--the same street down which I had last
+ridden on that night when Gambara had opened the gates of the prison for
+me--and so we came to the square and to Cosimo's palace.
+
+All was in darkness, and the great doors were closed. A strange
+appearance this for a house to which a bride had so newly come.
+
+I dismounted as lightly as if I had not ridden lately more than just
+the ten miles from Pagliano. Indeed, I had become unconscious of all
+fatigue, entirely oblivious of the fact that for three nights now I had
+not slept--save for the three hours at Bologna.
+
+I knocked briskly on the iron-studded gates. We stood there waiting,
+Cavalcanti and Falcone afoot with me, the men on horseback still, a
+silent phalanx.
+
+I issued an order to Falcone. "Ten of them to secure our egress, the
+rest to remain here and allow none to leave the house."
+
+The equerry stepped back to convey the command in his turn to the men,
+and the ten he summoned slipped instantly from their saddles and ranged
+themselves in the shadow of the wall.
+
+I knocked again, more imperatively, and at last the postern in the door
+was opened by an elderly serving-man.
+
+"What's this?" he asked, and thrust a lanthorn into my face.
+
+"We seek Messer Cosimo d'Anguissola," I answered. He looked beyond me
+at the troop that lined the street, and his face became troubled. "Why,
+what is amiss?" quoth he.
+
+"Fool, I shall tell that to your master. Conduct me to him. The matter
+presses."
+
+"Nay, then--but have you not heard? My lord was wed to-day. You would
+not have my lord disturbed at such a time?" He seemed to leer.
+
+I put my foot into his stomach, and bore him backward, flinging him
+full length upon the ground. He went over and rolled away into a corner,
+where he lay bellowing.
+
+"Silence him!" I bade the men who followed us in. "Then, half of you
+remain here to guard the stairs; the rest attend us."
+
+The house was vast, and it remained silent, so that it did not seem that
+the clown's scream when he went over had been heard by any.
+
+Up the broad staircase we sped, guided by the light of the lanthorn,
+which Falcone had picked up--for the place was ominously in darkness.
+Cavalcanti kept pace with me, panting with rage and anxiety.
+
+At the head of the stairs we came upon a man whom I recognized for one
+of the Duke's gentlemen-in-waiting. He had been attracted, no doubt,
+by the sound of our approach; but at sight of us he turned to escape.
+Cavalcanti reached forward in time to take him by the ankle, so that he
+came down heavily upon his face.
+
+In an instant I was sitting upon him, my dagger at his throat.
+
+"A sound," said I, "and you shall finish it in Hell!" Eyes bulging with
+fear stared at me out of his white face. He was an effeminate cur, of
+the sort that the Duke was wont to keep about him, and at once I saw
+that we should have no trouble with him.
+
+"Where is Cosimo?" I asked him shortly. "Come, man, conduct us to the
+room that holds him if you would buy your dirty life."
+
+"He is not here," wailed the fellow.
+
+"You lie, you hound," said Cavalcanti, and turning to me--"Finish him,
+Agostino," he bade me.
+
+The man under me writhed, filled now by the terror that Cavalcanti had
+so cunningly known how to inspire in him. "I swear to God that he is not
+here," he answered, and but that fear had robbed him of his voice, he
+would have screamed it. "Gesu! I swear it--it is true!"
+
+I looked up at Cavalcanti, baffled, and sick with sudden dismay. I saw
+Cavalcanti's eye, which had grown dull, kindle anew. He stooped over the
+prostrate man.
+
+"Is the bride here--is my daughter in this house?"
+
+The fellow whimpered and did not answer until my dagger's edge was at
+his throat again. Then he suddenly screeched--"Yes!"
+
+In an instant I had dragged him to his feet again, his pretty clothes
+and daintily curled hair all crumpled, so that he looked the most
+pitiful thing in all the world.
+
+"Lead us to her chamber," I bade him.
+
+And he obeyed as men obey when the fear of death is upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+
+An awful thought was in my mind as we went, evoked by the presence in
+such a place of one of the Duke's gentlemen; an awful question rose
+again and again to my lips, and yet I could not bring myself to utter
+it.
+
+So we went on in utter silence now, my hand upon his shoulder, clutching
+velvet doublet and flesh and bone beneath it, my dagger bare in my other
+hand.
+
+We crossed an antechamber whose heavy carpet muffled our footsteps, and
+we halted before tapestry curtains that masked a door, Here, curbing my
+fierce impatience, I paused. I signed to the five attendant soldiers to
+come no farther; then I consigned the courtier who had guided us to the
+care of Falcone, and I restrained Cavalcanti, who was shaking from head
+to foot.
+
+I raised the heavy, muffling curtain, and standing there an instant by
+the door, I heard my Bianca's voice, and her words seemed to freeze the
+very marrow in my bones.
+
+"O, my lord," she was imploring in a choking voice, "O, my lord, have
+pity on me!"
+
+"Sweet," came the answer, "it is I who beseech pity at your hands. Do
+you not see how I suffer? Do you not see how fiercely love of you is
+torturing me--how I burn--that you can so cruelly deny me?"
+
+It was Farnese's voice. Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the
+horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in
+a more horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or
+suspected.
+
+Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a
+hand upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand--the
+one that held the dagger--to my lips.
+
+Softly I tried the latch. I was amazed to find the door yield. And yet,
+where was the need to lock it? What interruption could he have feared in
+a house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom,
+a house that was in the hands of his own people?
+
+Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the
+threshold--Cavalcanti and I--father and lover of that sweet maid who was
+the prey of this foul Duke. We stood whilst a man might count a dozen,
+silent witnesses of that loathsome scene.
+
+The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved
+bed which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask--symbolizing
+the purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial
+altar.
+
+And to that dread sacrifice she had come--for my sake, as I was to
+learn--with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia. For that sacrifice she
+had been prepared; but not for this horror that was thrust upon her now.
+
+She crouched upon a tall-backed praying-stool, her gown not more white
+than her face, her little hands convulsively clasped to make her prayer
+to that monster who stood over her, his mottled face all flushed,
+his eyes glowing as they considered her helplessness and terror with
+horrible, pitiless greed.
+
+Thus we observed them, ourselves unperceived for some moments, for
+the praying-stool on which she crouched was placed to the left, by the
+cowled fire-place, in which a fire of scented wood was crackling, the
+scene lighted by two golden candlebranches that stood upon the table
+near the curtained window.
+
+"O, my lord!" she cried in her despair, "of your mercy leave me, and no
+man shall ever know that you sought me thus. I will be silent, my lord.
+O, if you have no pity for me, have, at least, pity for yourself. Do not
+cover yourself with the infamy of such a deed--a deed that will make you
+hateful to all men."
+
+"Gladly at such a price would I purchase your love, my Bianca! What
+pains could daunt me? Ah, you are mine, you are mine!"
+
+As the hawk that has been long poised closes its wings and drops at
+last upon its prey, so swooped he of a sudden down upon her, caught and
+dragged her up from the praying-stool to crush her to him.
+
+She screamed in that embrace, and sought to battle, swinging round so
+that her back was fully towards us, and Farnese, swinging round also in
+that struggle, faced us and beheld us.
+
+It was as if a mask had been abruptly plucked from his face, so sudden
+and stupendous was its alteration. From flushed that it had been it grew
+livid and sickly; the unholy fires were spent in his eyes, and they grew
+dull and dead as a snake's; his jaw was loosened, and the sensual mouth
+looked unutterably foolish.
+
+For a moment I think I smiled upon him, and then Cavalcanti and I sprang
+forward, both together. As we moved, his arms loosened their hold, and
+Bianca would have fallen but that I caught her.
+
+Her terror still upon her, she glanced upwards to see what fresh enemy
+was this, and then, at sight of my face, as my arms closed about her,
+and held her safe--
+
+"Agostino!" she cried, and closed her eyes to lie panting on my breast.
+
+The Duke, fleeing like a scared rat before the anger of Cavalcanti,
+scuttled down the room to a small door in the wall that held the
+fire-place. He tore it open and sprang through, Cavalcanti following
+recklessly.
+
+There was a snarl and a cry, and the Lord of Pagliano staggered back,
+clutching one hand to his breast, and through his fingers came an ooze
+of blood. Falcone ran to him. But Cavalcanti swore like a man possessed.
+
+"It is nothing!" he snapped. "By the horns of Satan! it is nothing. A
+flesh wound, and like a fool I gave back before it. After him! In there!
+Kill! Kill!"
+
+Out came Falcone's sword with a swish, and into the dark closet beyond
+went the equerry with a roar, Cavalcanti after him.
+
+It seemed that scarce had Farnese got within that closet than,
+flattening himself against the wall, he had struck at Cavalcanti as the
+latter followed, thus driving him back and gaining all the respite he
+needed. For now they found the closet empty. There was a door beyond,
+that opened to a corridor, and this was locked. Not a doubt but that
+Farnese had gone that way. They broke that door down. I heard them at
+it what time I comforted Bianca, and soothed her, stroking her head,
+her cheek, and murmuring fondly to her until presently she was weeping
+softly.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti and Falcone found us presently when they returned.
+Farnese had escaped with one of his gentlemen who had reached him in
+time to warn him that the street was full of soldiers and the palace
+itself invaded. Thereupon the Duke had dropped from one of the windows
+to the garden, his gentleman with him, and Cavalcanti had been no more
+than in time to see them disappearing through the garden gate.
+
+The Lord of Pagliano's buff-coat was covered with blood where Pier Luigi
+had stabbed him. But he would give the matter no thought. He was like a
+tiger now. He dashed out into the antechamber, and I heard him bellowing
+orders. Someone screamed horribly, and then followed a fierce din as if
+the very place were coming down about our ears.
+
+"What is it?" cried Bianca, quivering in my arms. "Are... are they
+fighting?"
+
+"I do not think so, sweet," I answered her. "We are in great strength.
+Have no fear."
+
+And then Falcone came in again.
+
+"The Lord of Pagliano is raging like a madman," he said. "We had best be
+getting away or we shall have a brush with the Captain of Justice."
+
+Supporting Bianca, I led her from that chamber.
+
+"Where are we going?" she asked me.
+
+"Home to Pagliano," I answered her, and with that answer comforted that
+sorely tried maid.
+
+We found the antechamber in wreckage. The great chandelier had been
+dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed and cut to ribbons, the
+arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced
+to fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and
+not a pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
+
+Thus, it seemed, childishly almost, had Cavalcanti vented his terrible
+rage, and I could well conceive what would have befallen any of the
+Duke's people upon whom in that hour he had chanced. I did not know
+then that the poor pimp who had acted as our guide was hanging from the
+balcony dead, nor that his had been the horrible scream I had heard.
+
+On the stairs we met the raging Cavalcanti reascending, the stump of his
+shivered sword in his hand.
+
+"Hasten!" he cried. "I was coming for you. Let us begone!"
+
+Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a
+heap of straw.
+
+"What is this?" I asked.
+
+"You shall see," he roared. "Get to horse."
+
+I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in
+front of me, my arm about her to support her.
+
+Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring
+torch. He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with
+it in a dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of
+flame. When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it
+was all a roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
+
+He stood back and laughed. "If there are any more of his brothel-mates
+in the house, they can escape as he did. They will be more fortunate
+than that one." And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the
+balcony, so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
+
+With my hand I screened Bianca's eyes. "Do not look," I bade her.
+
+I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body. And yet I
+reflected that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the
+foul crime that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and
+worse.
+
+Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to
+their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the
+ground floor of Cosimo's palace.
+
+We reached the Porta Fodesta, and peremptorily bade the guard to open
+for us. He answered, as became his duty, with the very words that had
+been addressed to me at that place on a night two years ago:
+
+"None passes out to-night."
+
+In an instant a group of our men surrounded him, others made a living
+barrier before the guard-house, whilst two or three dismounted, drew the
+bolts, and dragged the great gates open.
+
+We rode on, crossing the river, and heading straight for Pagliano.
+
+For a while it was the sweetest ride that ever I rode, with my
+Bianca nestling against my breast, and responding faintly to all the
+foolishness that poured from me in that ambrosial hour.
+
+And then it seemed to me that we rode not by night but in the blazing
+light of day, along a dusty road, flanking an arid, sun-drenched stretch
+of the Campagna; and despite the aridity there must be water somewhere,
+for I heard it thundering as the Bagnanza had thundered after rain, and
+yet I knew that could not be the Bagnanza, for the Bagnanza was nowhere
+in the neighbourhood of Rome.
+
+Suddenly a great voice, and I knew it for the voice of Bianca, called me
+by name.
+
+"Agostino!"
+
+The vision was dissipated. It was night again and we were riding for
+Pagliano through the fertile lands of ultra-Po; and there was Bianca
+clutching at my breast and uttering my name in accents of fear, whilst
+the company about me was halting.
+
+"What is it?" cried Cavalcanti. "Are you hurt?" I understood. I had been
+dozing in the saddle, and I must have rolled out of it but that Bianca
+awakened me with her cry. I said so.
+
+"Body of Satan!" he swore. "To doze at such a time!"
+
+"I have scarce been out of the saddle for three days and three
+nights--this is the fourth," I informed him. "I have had but three hours'
+sleep since we left Rome. I am done," I admitted. "You, sir, had best
+take your daughter. She is no longer safe with me."
+
+It was so. The fierce tension which had banished sleep from me whilst
+these things were doing, being now relaxed, left me exhausted as
+Galeotto had been at Bologna. And Galeotto had urged me to halt and rest
+there! He had begged for twelve hours! I could now thank Heaven from a
+full heart for having given me the strength and resolution to ride on,
+for those twelve hours would have made all the difference between Heaven
+and Hell.
+
+Cavalcanti himself would not take her, confessing to some weakness. For
+all that he insisted that his wound was not serious, yet he had lost
+much blood through having neglected in his rage to stanch it. So it was
+to Falcone that fell the charge of that sweet burden.
+
+The last thing I remember was Cavalcanti's laugh, as, from the high
+ground we had mounted, he stopped to survey a ruddy glare above the city
+of Piacenza, where, in a vomit of sparks, Cosimo's fine palace was being
+consumed.
+
+Then we rode down into the valley again; and as we went the thud of
+hooves grew more and more distant, and I slept in the saddle as I rode,
+a man-at-arms on either side of me, so that I remember no more of the
+doings of that strenuous night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE PENANCE
+
+
+I awakened in the chamber that had been mine at Pagliano before my
+arrest by order of the Holy Office, and I was told upon awakening that I
+had slept a night and a day and that it was eventide once more.
+
+I rose, bathed, and put on a robe of furs, and then Galeotto came to
+visit me.
+
+He had arrived at dawn, and he too had slept for some ten hours since
+his arrival, yet despite of it his air was haggard, his glance overcast
+and heavy.
+
+I greeted him joyously, conscious that we had done well. But he remained
+gloomy and unresponsive.
+
+"There is ill news," he said at last. "Cavalcanti is in a raging fever,
+and he is sapped of strength, his body almost drained of blood. I even
+fear that he is poisoned, that Farnese's dagger was laden with some
+venom."
+
+"O, surely... it will be well with him!" I faltered. He shook his head
+sombrely, his brows furrowed.
+
+"He must have been stark mad last night. To have raged as he did with
+such a wound upon him, and to have ridden ten miles afterwards! O, it
+was midsummer frenzy that sustained him. Here in the courtyard he reeled
+unconscious from the saddle; they found him drenched with blood from
+head to foot; and he has been unconscious ever since. I am afraid..." He
+shrugged despondently.
+
+"Do you mean that... that he may die?" I asked scarce above a whisper.
+
+"It will be a miracle if he does not. And that is one more crime to the
+score of Pier Luigi." He said it in a tone of indescribable passion,
+shaking his clenched fist at the ceiling.
+
+The miracle did not come to pass. Two days later, in the presence of
+Galeotto, Bianca, Fra Gervasio, who had been summoned from his Piacenza
+convent to shrive the unfortunate baron, and myself, Ettore Cavalcanti
+sank quietly to rest.
+
+Whether he was dealt an envenomed wound, as Galeotto swore, or whether
+he died as a result of the awful draining of his veins, I do not know.
+
+At the end he had a moment of lucidity.
+
+"You will guard my Bianca, Agostino," he said to me, and I swore it
+fervently, as he bade me, whilst upon her knees beyond the bed, clasping
+one of his hands that had grown white as marble, Bianca was sobbing
+brokenheartedly.
+
+Then the dying man turned his head to Galeotto. "You will see justice
+done upon that monster ere you die," he said. "It is God's holy work."
+
+And then his mind became clouded again by the mists of approaching
+dissolution, and he sank into a sleep, from which he never awakened.
+
+We buried him on the morrow in the Chapel of Pagliano, and on the
+next day Galeotto drew up a memorial wherein he set forth all the
+circumstances of the affair in which that gallant gentleman had met
+his end. It was a terrible indictment of Pier Luigi Farnese. Of this
+memorial he prepared two copies, and to these--as witnesses of all the
+facts therein related--Bianca, Falcone, and I appended our signatures,
+and Fra Gervasio added his own. One of these copies Galeotto dispatched
+to the Pope, the other to Ferrante Gonzaga in Milan, with a request that
+it should be submitted to the Emperor.
+
+When the memorial was signed, he rose, and taking Bianca's hand in his
+own, he swore by his every hope of salvation that ere another year was
+sped her father should be avenged together with all the other of Pier
+Luigi's victims.
+
+That same day he set out again upon his conspirator's work, whose aim
+was not only the life of Pier Luigi, but the entire shattering of
+the Pontifical sway in Parma and Piacenza. Some days later he sent me
+another score of lances--for he kept his forces scattered about the
+country whilst gradually he increased their numbers.
+
+Thereafter we waited for events at Pagliano, the drawbridge raised, and
+none entering save after due challenge.
+
+We expected an attack which never came; for Pier Luigi did not dare to
+lead an army against an Imperial fief upon such hopeless grounds as were
+his own. Possibly, too, Galeotto's memorial may have caused the Pope to
+impose restraint upon his dissolute son.
+
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, however, had the effrontery to send a messenger a
+week later to Pagliano, to demand the surrender of his wife, saying
+that she was his by God's law and man's, and threatening to enforce his
+rights by an appeal to the Vatican.
+
+That we sent the messenger empty-handed away, it is scarce necessary to
+chronicle. I was in command at Pagliano, holding it in Bianca's name,
+as Bianca's lieutenant and castellan, and I made oath that I would never
+lower the bridge to admit an enemy.
+
+But Cosimo's message aroused in us a memory that had lain dormant these
+days. She was no longer for my wooing. She was the wife of another.
+
+It came to us almost as a flash of lightning in the night; and it
+startled us by all that it revealed.
+
+"The fault of it is all mine," said she, as we sat that evening in the
+gold-and-purple dining-room where we had supped.
+
+It was with those words that she broke the silence that had endured
+throughout the repast, until the departure of the pages and the
+seneschal who had ministered to us precisely as in the days when
+Cavalcanti had been alive.
+
+"Ah, not that, sweet!" I implored her, reaching a hand to her across the
+table.
+
+"But it is true, my dear," she answered, covering my hand with her own.
+"If I had shown you more mercy when so contritely you confessed your
+sin, mercy would have been shown to me. I should have known from the
+sign I had that we were destined for each other; that nothing that you
+had done could alter that. I did know it, and yet..." She halted there,
+her lip tremulous.
+
+"And yet you did the only thing that you could do when your sweet purity
+was outraged by the knowledge of what I really had been."
+
+"But you were so no more," she said with a something of pleading in her
+voice.
+
+"It was you--the blessed sight of you that cleansed me," I cried. "When
+love for you awoke in me, I knew love for the first time, for that other
+thing which I deemed love had none of love's holiness. Your image drove
+out all the sin from my soul. The peace which half a year of penance, of
+fasting and flagellation could not bring me, was brought me by my love
+for you when it awoke. It was as a purifying fire that turned to ashes
+all the evil of desires that my heart had held."
+
+Her hand pressed mine. She was weeping softly.
+
+"I was an outcast," I continued. "I was a mariner without compass,
+far from the sight of land, striving to find my way by the light
+of sentiments implanted in me from early youth. I sought salvation
+desperately--sought it in a hermitage, as I would have sought it in
+a cloister but that I had come to regard myself as unworthy of
+the cloistered life. I found it at last, in you, in the blessed
+contemplation of you. It was you who taught me the lesson that the world
+is God's world and that God is in the world as much as in the cloister.
+Such was the burden of your message that night when you appeared to me
+on Monte Orsaro."
+
+"O, Agostino!" she cried, "and all this being so can you refrain from
+blaming me for what has come to pass? If I had but had faith in you--the
+faith in the sign which we both received--I should have known all this;
+known that if you had sinned you had been tempted and that you had
+atoned."
+
+"I think the atonement lies here and now, in this," I answered very
+gravely. "She was the wife of another who dragged me down. You are the
+wife of another who have lifted me up. She through sin was attainable.
+That you can never, never be, else should I have done with life in
+earnest. But do not blame yourself, sweet saint. You did as your pure
+spirit bade you; soon all would have been well but that already Messer
+Pier Luigi had seen you."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"You know, dear that if I submitted to wed your cousin, it was to save
+you--that such was the price imposed?"
+
+"Dear saint!" I cried.
+
+"I but mention it that upon such a score you may have no doubt of my
+motives."
+
+"How could I doubt?" I protested.
+
+I rose, and moved down the room towards the window, behind which the
+night gleamed deepest blue. I looked out upon the gardens from which
+the black shadows of stark poplars thrust upward against the sky, and I
+thought out this thing. Then I turned to her, having as I imagined found
+the only and rather obvious solution.
+
+"There is but one thing to do, Bianca."
+
+"And that?" her eyes were very anxious, and looked perhaps even more so
+in consequence of the pallor of her face and the lines of pain that had
+come into it in these weeks of such sore trial.
+
+"I must remove the barrier that stands between us. I must seek out
+Cosimo and kill him."
+
+I said it without anger, without heat of any sort: a calm, cold
+statement of a step that it was necessary to take. It was a just
+measure, the only measure that could mend an unjust situation. And so,
+I think, she too viewed it. For she did not start, or cry out in horror,
+or manifest the slightest surprise at my proposal. But she shook her
+head, and smiled very wistfully.
+
+"What a folly would not that be!" she said. "How would it amend what is?
+You would be taken, and justice would be done upon you summarily. Would
+that make it any easier or any better for me? I should be alone in the
+world and entirely undefended."
+
+"Ah, but you go too fast," I cried. "By justice I could not suffer, I
+need but to state the case, the motive of my quarrel, the iniquitous
+wrong that was attempted against you, the odious traffic of this
+marriage, and all men would applaud my act. None would dare do me a
+hurt."
+
+"You are too generous in your faith in man," she said. "Who would
+believe your claims?"
+
+"The courts," I said.
+
+"The courts of a State in which Pier Luigi governs?"
+
+"But I have witnesses of the facts."
+
+"Those witnesses would never be allowed to testify. Your protests would
+be smothered. And how would your case really look?" she cried. "The
+world would conceive that the lover of Bianca de' Cavalcanti had killed
+her husband that he might take her for his own. What could you hope for,
+against such a charge as that? Men might even remember that other affair
+of Fifanti's and even the populace, which may be said to have saved you
+erstwhile, might veer round and change from the opinion which it has
+ever held. They would say that one who has done such a thing once may do
+it twice; that..."
+
+"O, for pity's sake, stop! Have mercy!" I cried, flinging out my arms
+towards her. And mercifully she ceased, perceiving that she had said
+enough.
+
+I turned to the window again, and pressed my brow against the cool
+glass. She was right. That acute mind of hers had pierced straight to
+the very core of this matter. To do the thing that had been in my mind
+would be not only to destroy myself, but to defile her; for upon her
+would recoil a portion of the odium that must be flung at me. And--as
+she said--what then must be her position? They would even have a case
+upon which to drag her from these walls of Pagliano. She would be a
+victim of the civil courts; she might, at Pier Luigi's instigation,
+be proceeded against as my accomplice in what would be accounted a
+dastardly murder for the basest of motives.
+
+I turned to her again.
+
+"You are right," I said. "I see that you are right. Just as I was right
+when I said that my atonement lies here and now. The penance for which
+I have cried out so long is imposed at last. It is as just as it is
+cruelly apt."
+
+I came slowly back to the table, and stood facing her across it. She
+looking up at me with very piteous eyes.
+
+"Bianca, I must go hence," I said. "That, too, is clear."
+
+Her lips parted; her eyes dilated; her face, if anything, grew paler.
+
+"O, no, no!" she cried piteously.
+
+"It must be," I said. "How can I remain? Cosimo may appeal for justice
+against me, claiming that I hold his wife in duress--and justice will be
+done."
+
+"But can you not resist? Pagliano is strong and well-manned. The Black
+Bands are very faithful men, and they will stand by you to the end."
+
+"And the world?" I cried. "What will the world say of you? It is you
+yourself have made me see it. Shall your name be dragged in the foul
+mire of scandal? The wife of Cosimo d'Anguissola a runagate with her
+husband's cousin? Shall the world say that?"
+
+She moaned, and covered her face with her hands. Then she controlled
+herself again, and looked at me almost fiercely.
+
+"Do you care so much for what men say?"
+
+"I am thinking of you."
+
+"Then think of me to better purpose, my Agostino. Consider that we are
+confronted by two evils, and that the choice of the lesser is forced
+upon us. If you go, I am all unprotected, and... and... the harm is done
+already."
+
+Long I looked at her with such a yearning to take her in my arms and
+comfort her! And I had the knowledge that if I remained, daily must I
+experience this yearning which must daily grow crueller and more fierce
+from the very restraint I must impose upon it. And then that rearing of
+mine, all drenched in sanctity misunderstood, came to my help, and made
+me see in this an added burden to my penance, a burden which I must
+accept if I would win to ultimate grace.
+
+And so I consented to remain, and I parted from her with no more than
+a kiss bestowed upon her finger-tips, and went to pray for patience and
+strength to bear my heavy cross and so win to my ultimate reward, be it
+in this world or the next.
+
+In the morning came news by a messenger from Galeotto--news of one more
+foul crime that the Duke had committed on that awful night when we had
+rescued Bianca from his evil claws. The unfortunate Giuliana had been
+found dead in her bed upon the following morning, and the popular voice
+said that the Duke had strangled her.
+
+Of that rumour I subsequently had confirmation. It would appear that
+maddened with rage at the loss of his prey, that ravening wolf had
+looked about to discover who might have betrayed his purpose and
+procured that intervention. He bethought him of Giuliana. Had not Cosimo
+seen her in intimate talk with me on the morning of my arrest, and would
+he not have reported it to his master?
+
+So to the handsome mansion in which he housed her, and to which at all
+hours he had access, the Duke went instantly. He must have taxed
+her with it; and knowing her nature, I can imagine that she not only
+admitted that his thwarting was due to her, but admitted it mockingly,
+exultingly, jeering as only a jealous woman can jeer, until in his rage
+he seized her by the throat.
+
+How bitterly must she not have repented that she had not kept a better
+guard upon her tongue, during those moments of her agony, brief in
+themselves, yet horribly long to her, until her poor wanton spirit went
+forth from the weak clay that she had loved too well.
+
+When I heard of the end of that unfortunate, all my bitterness against
+her went out of me, and in my heart I set myself to find excuses for
+her. Witty and cultured in much; in much else she had been as stupid as
+the dumb beast. She was irreligious as were many because what she saw
+of religion did not inspire respect in her, and whilst one of her lovers
+had been a prince of the Church another had been the son of the Pope.
+She was by nature sensuous, and her sensuousness stifled in her all
+perception of right or wrong.
+
+I like to think that her death was brought about as the result of a good
+deed--so easily might it have been the consequence of an evil one. And I
+trust that that deed--good in itself, whatever the sources from which
+it may have sprung--may have counted in her favour and weighed in the
+balance against the sins that were largely of her nature.
+
+I bethought me of Fra Gervasio's words to me: "Who that knows all that
+goes to the making of a sin shall ever dare to blame a sinner?" He had
+applied those words to my own case where Giuliana was concerned. But do
+they not apply equally to Giuliana? Do they not apply to every sinner,
+when all is said?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. BLOOD
+
+
+The words that passed between Bianca and me that evening in the
+dining-room express all that can be said of our attitude to each other
+during the months that followed. Daily we met, and the things which our
+lips no longer dared to utter, our eyes expressed.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks, and these accumulated into months. The
+autumn faded from gold to grey, and the winter came and laid the earth
+to sleep, and then followed spring to awaken it once more.
+
+None troubled us at Pagliano, and we began with some justice to consider
+ourselves secure. Galeotto's memorial, not a doubt, had stirred up
+matters; and Pier Luigi would be under orders from his father not to add
+one more scandal to the many of his life by venturing to disturb Madonna
+Bianca in her stronghold at Pagliano.
+
+From time to time we were visited by Galeotto. It was well for him that
+fatigue had overwhelmed him that day at Bologna, and so hindered him
+from taking a hand with us in the doings of that hideous night, else he
+might no longer have freedom to roam the State unchallenged as he did.
+
+He told us of the new citadel the Duke was building in Piacenza, and
+how for the purpose he was pulling down houses relentlessly to obtain
+material and to clear himself a space, and how, further, he was widening
+and strengthening the walls of the city.
+
+"But I doubt," he said one morning in that spring, "if he will live to
+see the work completed. For we are resolved at last. There is no
+need for an armed rising. Five score of my lances will be all that is
+necessary. We are planning a surprise, and Ferrante Gonzaga is to be at
+hand to support us with Imperial troops and to receive the State as the
+Emperor's vicegerent when the hour strikes. It will strike soon," he
+added, "and this, too, shall be paid for with the rest." And he touched
+the black mourning gown that Bianca wore.
+
+He rode away again that day, and he went north for a last interview with
+the Emperor's Lieutenant, but promising to return before the blow was
+struck to give me the opportunity to bear my share in it.
+
+Spring turned to summer, and we waited, wandering in the gardens
+together; reading together, playing at bowls or tennis, though the
+latter game was not considered one for women, and sometimes exercising
+the men-at-arms in the great inner bailey where they lodged. Twice we
+rode out ahawking, accompanied by a strong escort, and returned without
+mishap, though I would not consent to a third excursion, lest a rumour
+having gone abroad, our enemies should lie in wait to trap us. I grew
+strangely fearful of losing her who did not and who never might belong
+to me.
+
+And all this time my penance, as I regarded it, grew daily heavier to
+bear. Long since I had ceased so much as to kiss her finger-tips. But
+to kiss the very air she breathed was fraught with danger to my peace
+of mind. And then one evening, as we paced the garden together, I had
+a moment's madness, a moment in which my yearnings would no longer be
+repressed. Without warning I swung about, caught her in my arms, and
+crushed her to me.
+
+I saw the sudden flicker of her eyelids, the one swift upward glance of
+her blue eyes, and I beheld in them a yearning akin to my own, but also
+a something of fear that gave me pause.
+
+I put her from me. I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown.
+
+"Forgive me, sweet." I besought her very humbly.
+
+"My poor Agostino," was all she answered me, what time her fingers
+fluttered gently over my sable hair.
+
+Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
+save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
+
+At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary
+of her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a
+Thursday--came Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and
+that night he was gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve
+months past.
+
+When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
+transpired.
+
+"It is the hour," he said very pregnantly. "His sands are swiftly
+running out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone
+shall remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made
+upon Pagliano, which is not likely."
+
+And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
+occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of
+the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving
+him the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to
+answer for his sins.
+
+Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties,
+for which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no
+more. Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush
+the barons, Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no
+longer needed. Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and
+their very houses were being pulled down to supply material for the new
+citadel, the Duke recking little who might thus be left without a roof
+over his head.
+
+"He has gone mad," said Galeotto, and laughed. "Pier Luigi could not
+more effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends. The
+nobles he alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed
+against him and weary of his rapine. It is so bad with him that of late
+he has remained shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as
+to avoid the sight of the starving faces of the poor and the general
+ruin that he is making of that fair city. He has given out that he is
+ill. A little blood-letting will cure all his ills for ever."
+
+Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them
+their orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as
+countryfolk, but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they
+were severally to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the
+morning of Saturday at the time and place he indicated. They went, and
+that afternoon we followed.
+
+"You will come back to me, Agostino?" Bianca said to me at parting.
+
+"I will come back," I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very
+heavy.
+
+But as we rode the prospect of the thing to do warmed me a little, and
+I shook off my melancholy. Optimism coloured the world for me all of the
+rosy hue of promise.
+
+We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads
+to the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a
+dozen assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini
+of Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of
+Pier Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the
+house of Confalonieri.
+
+We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which
+reflected as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was
+charged, when suddenly Galeotto span a coin upon the middle of it. It
+fell flat presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which
+the abbreviation PLAC was a part.
+
+Galeotto set his finger to it. "A year ago I warned him," said he, "that
+his fate was written there in that shortened word. To-morrow I shall
+read the riddle for him."
+
+I did not understand the allusion and said so.
+
+"Why," he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also
+been knit, "first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his
+doom; and then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this
+undertaking--Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri."
+
+"You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in
+this affair," said I.
+
+He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
+
+And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere,
+for it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways,
+according to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the
+writing.
+
+Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
+
+Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were
+to assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at
+the Duke's side. He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an
+inspection of the new fortress that was building. It appeared that once
+more there was talk between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking
+service under him, and Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward
+his plans. He was, I think, the most self-contained and patient man that
+it would have been possible to find for such an undertaking.
+
+In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback
+attended the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming
+corselets and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went
+afoot to hedge his excellency.
+
+The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed
+their caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air
+was sullen and in the main they were silent, though here and there some
+knave, with the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs,
+raised a feeble shout of "Duca!"
+
+The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
+crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome
+in itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for
+the fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were
+great brown stains of suffering.
+
+I flattened myself against a wall in the shadow of a doorway lest he
+should see me, for my height made me an easy mark in that crowd. But he
+looked neither to right nor to left as he rode. Indeed, it was said
+that he could no longer bear to meet the glances of the people he had
+so grossly abused and outraged with deeds that are elsewhere abundantly
+related, and with which I need not turn your stomachs here.
+
+When they had gone by, I followed slowly in their wake towards the
+castle. As I turned out of the fine road that Gambara had built, I
+was joined by the brothers Pallavicini, a pair of resolute, grizzled
+gentlemen, the elder of whom, as you will remember, was slightly lame.
+With an odd sense of fitness they had dressed themselves in black. They
+were accompanied by half a dozen of Galeotto's men, but these bore no
+device by which they could be identified. We exchanged greetings, and
+stepped out together across the open space of the Piazza della Citadella
+towards the fortress.
+
+We crossed the drawbridge, and entered unchallenged by the guard. People
+were wont to come and go, and to approach the Duke it was necessary
+to pass the guard in the ante-chamber above, whose business it was to
+question all comers.
+
+Moreover the only guard set consisted of a couple of Swiss who lounged
+in the gateway, the garrison being all at dinner, a circumstance upon
+which Galeotto had calculated in appointing noon as the hour for the
+striking of the blow.
+
+We crossed the quadrangle, and passing under a second archway came
+into the inner bailey as we had been bidden. Here we were met by
+Confalonieri, who also had half a dozen men with him. He greeted us, and
+issued his orders sharply.
+
+"You, Ser Agostino, are to come with us, whilst you others are to remain
+here until Messer Landi arrives with the remainder of our forces. He
+should have a score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard
+when they enter. The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged
+as the signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge
+and overpower the Swiss who should still be at table. Landi has his
+orders and knows how to act."
+
+The Pallavicini briefly spoke their assents, and Confalonieri, taking
+me by the arm, led me quickly above-stairs, his half-dozen men following
+close upon our heels. Upon none was there any sign of armour. But every
+man wore a shirt of mail under his doublet or jerkin.
+
+We entered the ante-chamber--a fine, lofty apartment, richly hung and
+richly furnished. It was empty of courtiers, for all were gone to dine
+with the captain of the guard, who had been married upon that very
+morning and was giving a banquet in honour of the event, as Galeotto had
+informed himself when he appointed the day.
+
+Over by a window sat four of the Swiss--the entire guard--about a table
+playing at dice, their lances deposited in an angle of the wall.
+
+Watching their game--for which he had lingered after accompanying the
+Duke thus far--stood the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Galeotto. He
+turned as we entered, and gave us an indifferent glance as if we were of
+no interest to him, then returned his attention to the dicers.
+
+One or two of the Swiss looked up at us casually. The dice rattled
+merrily, and there came from the players little splutters of laughter
+and deep guttural, German oaths.
+
+At the room's far end, by the curtains that masked the door of the
+chamber where Farnese sat at dinner, stood an usher in black velvet,
+staff in hand, who took no more interest in us than did the Swiss.
+
+We sauntered over to the dicers' table, and in placing ourselves the
+better to watch their game, we so contrived that we entirely hemmed them
+into the embrasure, whilst Confalonieri himself stood with his back to
+the pikes, an effective barrier between the men and their weapons.
+
+We remained thus for some moments whilst the game went on, and we
+laughed with the winners and swore with the losers, as if our hearts
+were entirely in the dicing and we had not another thought in the world.
+
+Suddenly a pistol-shot crackled below, and startled the Swiss, who
+looked at one another. One burly fellow whom they named Hubli held the
+dice-box poised for a throw that was never made.
+
+Across the courtyard below men were running with drawn swords, shouting
+as they ran, and hurled themselves through the doorway leading to the
+quarters where the Swiss were at table. This the guards saw through the
+open window, and they stared, muttering German oaths to express their
+deep bewilderment.
+
+And then there came a creak of winches and a grinding of chains to
+inform us that the bridge was being taken up. At last those four
+lanzknechte looked at us.
+
+"Beim blute Gottes!" swore Hubli. "Was giebt es?"
+
+Our set faces, showing no faintest trace of surprise, quickened their
+alarm, and this became flavoured by suspicion when they perceived at
+last how closely we pressed about them.
+
+"Continue your game," said Confalonieri quietly, "it will be best for
+you."
+
+The great blonde fellow Hubli flung down the dice-box and heaved himself
+up truculently to face the speaker who stood between him and the lances.
+Instantly Confalonieri stabbed him, and he sank back into his chair with
+a cry, intensest surprise in his blue eyes, so sudden and unlooked-for
+had the action been.
+
+Galeotto had already left the group about the table, and with a blow of
+his great hand he felled the usher who sought to bar his passage to
+the Duke's chamber. He tore down the curtains, and he was wrapping
+and entangling the fellow in the folds of them when I came to his aid
+followed by Confalonieri, whose six men remained to hold the three sound
+and the one wounded Swiss in check.
+
+And now from below there rose such a din of steel on steel, of shouts
+and screams and curses, that it behoved us to make haste.
+
+Bidding us follow him, Galeotto flung open the door. At table sat
+Farnese with two of his gentlemen, one of whom was the Marquis
+Sforza-Fogliani, the other a doctor of canon law named Copallati.
+
+Alarm was already written on their faces. At sight of Galeotto--"Ah! You
+are still here!" cried Farnese. "What is taking place below? Have the
+Swiss fallen to fighting among themselves?"
+
+Galeotto returned no answer, but advanced slowly into the room; and
+now Farnese's eyes went past him and fastened upon me, and I saw
+them suddenly dilate; beyond me they went and met the cold glance of
+Confalonieri, that other gentleman he had so grievously wronged and whom
+he had stripped of the last rag of his possessions and his rights. The
+sun coming through the window caught the steel that Confalonieri still
+carried in his hands; its glint drew the eyes of the Duke, and he must
+have seen that the baron's sleeve was bloody.
+
+He rose, leaning heavily upon the table.
+
+"What does this mean?" he demanded in a quavering voice, and his face
+had turned grey with apprehension.
+
+"It means," Galeotto answered him, firmly and coldly, "that your rule
+in Piacenza is at an end, that the Pontifical sway is broken in these
+States, and that beyond the Po Ferrante Gonzaga waits with an army to
+take possession here in the Emperor's name. Finally, my Lord Duke, it
+means that the Devil's patience is to be rewarded, and that he is at
+last to have you who have so faithfully served him upon earth."
+
+Farnese made a gurgling sound and put a jewelled hand to his throat
+as if he choked. He was all in green velvet, and every button of
+his doublet was a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its
+incongruity seemed to heighten the tragedy of the moment.
+
+Of his gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed
+seat, clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white
+as marble. In like case were the two attendant servants, who hung
+motionless by the buffet. But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for
+all his effeminate appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand to his
+weapons.
+
+Instantly Confalonieri's sword flashed from its sheath. He had passed
+his dagger into his left hand.
+
+"On your life, my Lord Marquis, do not meddle here," he warned him in a
+voice that was like a trumpet-call.
+
+And before that ferocious aspect and those naked weapons Sforza-Fogliani
+stood checked and intimidated.
+
+I too had drawn my poniard, determined that Farnese should fall to my
+steel in settlement of the score that lay between us. He saw the act,
+and if possible his fears were increased, for he knew that the wrongs he
+had done me were personal matters between us for which it was not likely
+I should prove forgiving.
+
+"Mercy!" he gasped, and held out supplicating hands to Galeotto.
+
+"Mercy?" I echoed, and laughed fiercely. "What mercy would you have
+shown me against whom you set the Holy Office, but that you could sell
+my life at a price that was merciless? What mercy would you have shown
+to the daughter of Cavalcanti when she lay in your foul power? What
+mercy did you show her father who died by your hand? What mercy did you
+show the unfortunate Giuliana whom you strangled in her bed? What mercy
+did you ever show to any that you dare ask now for mercy?"
+
+He looked at me with dazed eyes, and from me to Galeotto. He shuddered
+and turned a greenish hue. His knees were loosened by terror, and he
+sank back into the chair from which he had risen.
+
+"At least... at least," he gasped, "let me have a priest to shrive me. Do
+not... do not let me die with all my sins upon me!"
+
+In that moment there came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly
+moving feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries. The sound
+heartened him. He conceived that someone came to his assistance. He
+raised his voice in a desperate screech:
+
+"To me! To me! Help!"
+
+As he shouted I sprang towards him, to find my passage suddenly barred
+by Galeotto's arm. He shot it out, and my breast came against it
+as against a rod of iron. It threw me out of balance, and ere I had
+recovered it had thrust me back again.
+
+"Back there!" said Galeotto's brazen voice. "This affair is mine. Mine
+are the older wrongs and the greater."
+
+With that he stepped behind the Duke's chair, and Farnese in a fresh
+spurt of panic came to his feet. Galeotto locked an arm about his neck
+and pulled his head back. Into his ear he muttered words that I could
+not overhear, but it was matter that stilled Farnese's last struggle.
+Only the Duke's eyes moved, rolling in his head as he sought to look
+upon the face of the man who spoke to him. And in that moment Galeotto
+wrenched his victim's head still farther back, laying entirely bare the
+long brown throat, across which he swiftly drew his dagger.
+
+Copallati screamed and covered his face with his hands; Sforza-Fogliani,
+white to the lips, looked on like a man entranced.
+
+There was a screech from Farnese that ended in a gurgle, and suddenly
+the blood spurted from his neck as from a fountain. Galeotto let him go.
+He dropped to his chair and fell forward against the table, drenching it
+in blood. Thence he went over sideways and toppled to the floor, where
+he lay twitching, a huddle of arms and legs, the head lolling sideways,
+the eyes vitreous, and blood, blood, blood all about him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE OVERTHROW
+
+
+The sight turned me almost physically sick.
+
+I faced about, and sprang from the room out into the ante-chamber, where
+a battle was in progress. Some three or four of the Duke's gentlemen
+and a couple of Swiss had come to attempt a rescue. They had compelled
+Galeotto's six men to draw and defend themselves, the odds being
+suddenly all against them. Into that medley I went with drawn sword,
+hacking and cutting madly, giving knocks and taking them, glad of the
+excitement of it; glad of anything that would shut out from my mind the
+horror of the scene I had witnessed.
+
+Presently Confalonieri came out to take a hand, leaving Galeotto
+on guard within, and in a few minutes we had made an end of that
+resistance--the last splutter of resistance within those walls.
+
+Beyond some cuts and scratches that some of us had taken, not a man
+of ours was missing, whilst of the Duke's followers not a single one
+remained alive in that ante-chamber. The place was a shambles. Hangings
+that had been clutched had been torn from the walls; a great mirror was
+cracked from top to bottom; tables were overset and wrecked; chairs were
+splintered; and hardly a pane of glass remained in any of the windows.
+And everywhere there was blood, everywhere dead men.
+
+Up the stairs came trooping now our assembled forces led by Landi
+and the Pallavicini. Below all was quiet. The Swiss garrison taken by
+surprise at table, as was planned, had been disarmed and all were safe
+and impotent under lock and bolt. The guards at the gate had been cut
+down, and we were entirely masters of the place.
+
+Sforza-Fogliani, Copallati, and the two servants were fetched from the
+Duke's chamber and taken away to be locked up in another room until the
+business should be ended. For after all, it was but begun.
+
+In the town the alarm-bell was ringing from the tower of the Communal
+Palace, and at the sound I saw Galeotto's eyes kindling. He took
+command, none disputing it him, and under his orders men went briskly to
+turn the cannon of the fortress upon the square, that an attack might be
+repulsed if it were attempted. And three salvoes were fired, to notify
+Ferrante Gonzaga where he waited that the castle was in the hands of the
+conspirators and Pier Luigi slain.
+
+Meanwhile we had returned with Galeotto to the room where the Duke
+had died, and where his body still lay, huddled as it had fallen. The
+windows of this chamber were set in the outer wall of the fortress,
+immediately above the gates and commanding a view of the square. We were
+six--Confalonieri, Landi, the two Pallavicini, Galeotto, and myself,
+besides a slight fellow named Malvicini, who had been an officer of
+light-horse in the Duke's service, but who had taken a hand in betraying
+him.
+
+In the square there was by now a seething, excited mob through which
+a little army of perhaps a thousand men of the town militia with their
+captain, da Terni, riding at their head, was forcing its way. And they
+were shouting "Duca!" and crying out that the castle had been seized by
+Spaniards--by which they meant the Emperor's troops.
+
+Galeotto dragged a chair to the window, and standing upon it, showed
+himself to the people.
+
+"Disperse!" he shouted to them. "To your homes! The Duke is dead!"
+
+But his voice could not surmount that raging din, above which continued
+to ring the cry of "Duca! Duca!"
+
+"Let me show them their Duca," said a voice. It was Malvicini's.
+
+He had torn down a curtain-rope, and had attached an end of it to one
+of the dead man's legs. Thus he dragged the body forward towards the
+window. The other end of the rope he now knotted very firmly to a
+mullion. Then he took the body up in his arms, whilst Galeotto stood
+aside to make way for him, and staggering under his ghastly burden,
+Malvicini reached the window, and heaved it over the sill.
+
+It fell the length of the rope and there was arrested with a jerk
+to hang head downwards, spread-eagle against the brown wall; and the
+diamond buttons in his green velvet doublet sparkled merrily in the
+sunshine.
+
+At that sight a great silence swept across the multitude, and availing
+himself of this, Galeotto again addressed those Piacentini.
+
+"To your homes," he cried to them, "and arm yourselves to defend the
+State from your enemies if the need should arise. There hangs the
+Duke--dead. He has been slain to liberate our country from unjust
+oppression."
+
+Still, it seemed, they did not hear him; for though to us they appeared
+to be almost silent, yet there was a rustle and stir amongst them, which
+must have deafened each to what was being announced.
+
+They renewed their cries of "Duca!" of "Spaniards!" and "To arms!"
+
+"A curse on your 'Spaniards!'" cried Malvicini. "Here! Take your Duke.
+Look at him, and understand." And he slashed the rope across, so that
+the body plunged down into the castle ditch.
+
+A few of the foremost of the crowd ran forward and scrambled down into
+the ditch to view the body, and from them the rumour of the truth ran
+like a ripple over water through that mob, so that in the twinkling of
+an eye there was no man in that vast concourse--and all Piacenza seemed
+by now to be packed into the square--but knew that Pier Luigi Farnese
+was dead.
+
+A sudden hush fell. There were no more cries of "Duca!" They stood
+silent, and not a doubt but that in the breasts of the majority surged
+a great relief. Even the militia ceased to advance. If the Duke was dead
+there was nothing left to do.
+
+Again Galeotto spoke to them, and this time his words were caught by
+those in the ditch immediately below us, and from them they were passed
+on, and suddenly a great cry went up--a shout of relief, a paean of joy.
+If Farnese was dead, and well dead, they could, at last, express the
+thing that was in their hearts.
+
+And now at the far end of the square a glint of armour appeared; a troop
+of horse emerged, and began slowly to press forward through the crowd,
+driving it back on either side, but very gently. They came three
+abreast, and there were six score of them, and from their lance-heads
+fluttered bannerols showing a sable bar on an argent field. They were
+Galeotto's free company, headed by one of his lieutenants. Beyond the Po
+they too had been awaiting the salvo of artillery that should be their
+signal to advance.
+
+When their identity was understood, and when the crowd had perceived
+that they rode to support the holders of the castle, they were greeted
+with lusty cheers, in which presently even the militia joined, for these
+last were Piacentini and no Swiss hireling soldiers of the Duke's.
+
+The drawbridge was let down, and the company thundered over it to draw
+up in the courtyard under the eyes of Galeotto. He issued his orders
+once more to his companions. Then calling for horses for himself and for
+me, and bidding a score of lances to detach themselves to ride with us,
+we quitted the fortress.
+
+We pressed through the clamant multitude until we had reached the
+middle of the square. Here Galeotto drew rein and, raising his hand for
+silence, informed the people once more that the Duke had been done to
+death by the nobles of Piacenza, thus to avenge alike their own and the
+people's wrongs, and to free them from unjust oppression and tyranny.
+
+They cheered him when he had done, and the cry now was "Piacenza!
+Piacenza!"
+
+When they had fallen silent again--"I would have you remember," he
+cried, "that Pier Luigi was the Pontiff's son, and that the Pontiff will
+make haste to avenge his death and to re-establish here in Piacenza the
+Farnese sway. So that all that we have done this day may go for naught
+unless we take our measures."
+
+The silence deepened.
+
+"But you have been served by men who have the interest of the State at
+heart; and more has been done to serve you than the mere slaying of Pier
+Luigi Farnese. Our plans are made, and we but wait to know is it your
+will that the State should incorporate itself as of old with that of
+Milan, and place itself under the protection of the Emperor, who will
+appoint you fellow-countrymen for rulers, and will govern you wisely and
+justly, abolishing extortion and oppression?"
+
+A thunder of assent was his answer. "Cesare! Cesare!" was now the cry,
+and caps were tossed into the air.
+
+"Then go arm yourselves and repair to the Commune, and there make known
+your will to the Anziani and councillors, and see that it is given
+effect by them. The Emperor's Lieutenant is at your gates. I ride to
+surrender to him the city in your name, and before nightfall he will be
+here to protect you from any onslaught of the Pontificals."
+
+With that he pushed on, the mob streaming along with us, intent upon
+going there and then to do the thing that Galeotto advised. And by
+now they had discovered Galeotto's name, and they were shouting it in
+acclamation of him, and at the sound he smiled, though his eyes seemed
+very wistful.
+
+He leaned over to me, and gripped my hand where it lay on the saddle-bow
+clutching the reins.
+
+"Thus is Giovanni d'Anguissola at last avenged!" he said to me in a deep
+voice that thrilled me.
+
+"I would that he were here to know," I answered.
+
+And again Galeotto's eyes grew wistful as they looked at me.
+
+We won out of the town at last, and when we came to the high ground
+beyond the river, we saw in the plain below phalanx upon phalanx of a
+great army. It was Ferrante Gonzaga's Imperial force.
+
+Galeotto pointed to it. "That is my goal," he said. "You had best ride
+on to Pagliano with these lances. You may need them there. I had hoped
+that Cosimo would have been found in the castle with Pier Luigi. His
+absence makes me uneasy. Away with you, then. You shall have news of me
+within three days."
+
+We embraced, on horseback as we were. Then he wheeled his charger and
+went down the steep ground, riding hard for Ferrante's army, whilst
+we pursued our way, and came some two hours later without mishap to
+Pagliano.
+
+I found Bianca awaiting me in the gallery above the courtyard, drawn
+thither by the sounds of our approach.
+
+"Dear Agostino, I have been so fearful for you," was her greeting when I
+had leapt up the staircase to take her hand.
+
+I led her to the marble seat she had occupied on that night, two years
+ago, when first we had spoken of our visions. Briefly I gave her the
+news of what had befallen in Piacenza.
+
+When I had done, she sighed and looked at me.
+
+"It brings us no nearer to each other," she said.
+
+"Nay, now--this much nearer, at least, that the Imperial decree will
+return me the lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina, dispossessing the
+usurper. Thus I shall have something to offer you, my Bianca."
+
+She smiled at me very sadly, almost reproachfully.
+
+"Foolish," said she. "What matter the possessions that it may be yours
+to cast into my lap? Is that what we wait for, Agostino? Is there not
+Pagliano for you? Would not that, at need, be lordship enough?"
+
+"The meanest cottage of the countryside were lordship enough so that you
+shared it," I answered passionately, as many in like case have answered
+before and since.
+
+"You see, then, that you are wrong to attach importance to so slight
+a thing as this Imperial decree where you and I are concerned. Can an
+Imperial decree annul my marriage?"
+
+"For that a papal bull would be necessary."
+
+"And how is a papal bull to be obtained?"
+
+"It is not for us," I admitted miserably.
+
+"I have been wicked," she said, her eyes upon the ground, a faint
+colour stirring in her cheeks. "I have prayed that the usurper might be
+dispossessed of his rights in me. I have prayed that when the attack
+was made and revolt was carried into the Citadel of Piacenza, Cosimo
+d'Anguissola might stand at his usual post beside the Duke and might
+fall with him. Surely justice demanded it!" she cried out. "God's
+justice, as well as man's. His act in marrying me was a defilement
+of one of the holiest of sacraments, and for that he should surely be
+punished and struck down!"
+
+I went upon my knees to her. "Dear love!" I cried. "See, I have you
+daily in my sight. Let me not be ungrateful for so much."
+
+She took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes, saying no word.
+Then she leaned forward, and very gently touched my forehead with her
+lips.
+
+"God pity us a little, Agostino," she murmured, her eyes shining with
+unshed tears.
+
+"The fault is mine--all mine!" I denounced myself. "We are being visited
+with my sins. When I can take you for my own--if that blessed day
+should ever dawn--I shall know that I have attained to pardon, that I am
+cleansed and worthy of you at last."
+
+She rose and I escorted her within; then went to my own chamber to bathe
+and rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CITATION
+
+
+We were breaking our fast upon the following morning when Falcone sent
+word to me by one of the pages that a considerable force was advancing
+towards us from the south.
+
+I rose, somewhat uneasy. Yet I reflected that it was possible that,
+news of the revolt in Piacenza having reached Parma, this was an army
+of Pontificals moving thence upon the rebellious city. But in that case,
+what should they be doing this side of Po?
+
+An hour later, from the battlements where we paced side by side--Bianca
+and I--we were able to estimate this force and we fixed its strength
+at five score lances. Soon we could make out the device upon their
+bannerols--a boar's head azure upon an argent field--my own device, that
+of the Anguissola of Mondolfo; and instantly I knew them for Cosimo's
+men.
+
+On the lower parapet six culverins had been dragged into position under
+the supervision of Falcone--who was still with us at Pagliano. These
+pieces stood loaded and manned by the soldiers to whom I had assigned
+the office of engineers.
+
+Thus we waited until the little army came to a halt about a quarter of a
+mile away, and a trumpeter with a flag of truce rode forward accompanied
+by a knight armed cap-a-pie, his beaver down.
+
+The herald wound a challenge; and it was answered from the postern by a
+man-at-arms, whereupon the herald delivered his message.
+
+"In the name of our Holy Father and Lord, Paul III, we summon
+Agostino d'Anguissola here to confer with the High and Mighty Cosimo
+d'Anguissola, Tyrant of Mondolfo and Carmina."
+
+Three minutes later, to their infinite surprise, the bridge thudded down
+to span the ditch, and I walked out upon it with Bianca at my side.
+
+"Will the Lord Cosimo come within to deliver his message?" I demanded.
+
+The Lord Cosimo would not, fearing a trap.
+
+"Will he meet us here upon the bridge, divesting himself first of his
+weapons? Myself I am unarmed."
+
+The herald conveyed the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still. Indeed, he
+had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the
+first sign of a sortie.
+
+I laughed. "You are a paltry coward, Cosimo, when all is said," I
+shouted. "Do you not see that had I planned to take you, I need resort
+to no subterfuge? I have," I added--though untruthfully--"twice your
+number of lances under arms, and by now I could have flung them across
+the bridge and taken you under the very eyes of your own men. You were
+rash to venture so far. But if you will not venture farther, at least
+send me your herald."
+
+At that he got down from his horse, delivered up sword and dagger to his
+single attendant, received from the man a parchment, and came towards
+us, opening his vizor as he advanced. Midway upon the bridge we met. His
+lips curled in a smile of scorn.
+
+"Greetings, my strolling saint," he said. "Through all your vagaries you
+are at least consistent in that you ever engage your neighbour's wife to
+bear you company in your wanderings."
+
+I went hot and cold, red and white by turns. With difficulty I
+controlled myself under that taunt--the cruellest he could have flung at
+me in Bianca's hearing.
+
+"Your business here?" I snarled.
+
+He held out the parchment, his eyes watching me intently, so that they
+never once strayed to Bianca.
+
+"Read, St. Mountebank," he bade me.
+
+I took the paper, but before I lowered my eyes to it, I gave him
+warning.
+
+"If on your part you attempt the slightest treachery," I said, "you
+shall be repaid in kind. My men are at the winches, and they have my
+orders that at the first treacherous movement on your part they are to
+take up the bridge. You will see that you could not reach the end of it
+in time to save yourself."
+
+It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver. "Have
+you trapped me?" he asked between his teeth.
+
+"If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name," I answered,
+"you would know me incapable of such a thing. It is because I know that
+of the Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven,
+a dastard and a dog, that I have taken my precautions."
+
+"Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if
+bound hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?"
+
+I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.
+
+"Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself
+affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take
+it up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking."
+
+For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as
+most fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.
+
+"Read!" he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well
+warned by now, I read with confidence.
+
+It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death
+to make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which
+I traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
+
+"This document is not exact," said I. "I do not hold this castle
+traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's
+name."
+
+He smiled. "Persist if you are weary of life," he said. "Surrender now,
+and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in
+your offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This
+Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano
+by virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the
+Emperor.
+
+"And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the
+Emperor's Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to
+cast you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's
+law and man's alike."
+
+My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the
+brief to him.
+
+"To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You
+will find him in Piacenza."
+
+He looked at me, as if he did not understand. "How?" he asked.
+
+I explained. "While you have been cooling your heels in the
+ante-chambers of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy,
+the world hereabouts has moved a little. Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took
+possession of Piacenza in the Emperor's name. To-day the Council will be
+swearing fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant's hands."
+
+He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement.
+Then he swallowed hard.
+
+"And the Duke?" he asked.
+
+"The Duke has been in Hell these four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"Dead?" he questioned, his voice hushed.
+
+"Dead," said I.
+
+He leaned against the rail of the bridge, his arms fallen limply to
+his sides, one hand crushing the Pontifical parchment. Then he braced
+himself again. He had reviewed the situation, and did not see that it
+hurt his position, when all was said.
+
+"Even so," he urged, "what can you hope for? The Emperor himself must
+bow before this, and do me justice." And he smacked the document. "I
+demand my wife, and my demand is backed by Pontifical authority. You are
+mad if you think that Charles V can fail to support it."
+
+"It is possible that Charles V may take a different view of the memorial
+setting forth the circumstances of your marriage, from that which the
+Holy Father appears to have taken. I counsel you to seek the Imperial
+Lieutenant at Piacenza without delay. Here you waste time."
+
+His lips closed with a snap. Then, at last, his eyes wandered to Bianca,
+who stood just beside and slightly behind me.
+
+"Let me appeal to you, Monna Bianca..." he began.
+
+But at that I got between them. "Are you so dead to shame," I roared,
+"that you dare address her, you pimp, you jackal, you eater of dirt? Be
+off, or I will have this drawbridge raised and deal with you here and
+now, in despite of Pope and Emperor and all the other powers you can
+invoke. Away with you, then!"
+
+"You shall pay!" he snarled, "By God, you shall pay!"
+
+And on that he went off, in some fear lest I should put my threat into
+execution.
+
+But Bianca was in a panic. "He will do as he says." she cried as soon as
+we had re-entered the courtyard. "The Emperor cannot deny him justice.
+He must, he must! O, Agostino, it is the end. And see to what a pass I
+have brought you!"
+
+I comforted her. I spoke brave words. I swore to hold that castle as
+long as one stone of it stood upon another. But deep down in my heart
+there was naught but presages of evil.
+
+On the following day, which was Sunday, we had peace. But towards noon
+on Monday the blow fell. An Imperial herald from Piacenza rode out to
+Pagliano with a small escort.
+
+We were in the garden when word was brought us, and I bade the herald be
+admitted. Then I looked at Bianca. She was trembling and had turned very
+white.
+
+We spoke no word whilst they brought the messenger--a brisk fellow in
+his black-and-yellow Austrian livery. He delivered me a sealed letter.
+It proved to be a summons from Ferrante Gonzaga to appear upon the
+morrow before the Imperial Court which would sit in the Communal Palace
+of Piacenza to deliver judgment upon an indictment laid against me by
+Cosimo d'Anguissola.
+
+I looked at the herald, hesitation in my mind and glance. He held out a
+second letter.
+
+"This, my lord, I was asked by favour to deliver to you also."
+
+I took it, and considered the superscription:
+
+"These to the Most Noble Agostino d'Anguissola, at Pagliano.
+
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly."
+
+The hand was Galeotto's. I tore it open. It contained but two lines:
+
+"Upon your life do not fail to obey the Imperial summons. Send Falcone
+to me here at once." And it was signed--"GALEOTTO."
+
+"It is well," I said to the herald, "I will not fail to attend."
+
+I bade the seneschal who stood in attendance to give the messenger
+refreshment ere he left, and upon that dismissed him.
+
+When we were alone I turned to Bianca. "Galeotto bids me go," I said.
+"There is surely hope."
+
+She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away
+some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the
+curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
+
+"It is the end," I said. "One way or the other, it is the end. But
+for Galeotto's letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made
+myself an outlaw indeed. As it is--there is surely hope!"
+
+"O, Agostino, surely, surely!" she cried. "Have we not suffered enough?
+Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours?
+To-morrow I shall go with you to Piacenza."
+
+"No, no," I implored her.
+
+"Could I remain here?" she pleaded. "Could I sit here and wait? Could
+you be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?"
+
+"But if... if the worst befalls?"
+
+"It cannot," she answered. "I believe in God."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the
+Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes--the
+Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not
+their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet
+edged with miniver.
+
+They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga
+slightly above them on a raised dais, under a canopy. Behind him hung a
+golden shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns each
+surmounted by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a
+scroll intertwining the pillars was charged with the motto "PLUS ULTRA."
+
+At the back of the court stood the curious who had come to see the show,
+held in bounds by a steel line of Spanish halberdiers. But the concourse
+was slight, for the folk of Piacenza still had weightier matters to
+concern them than the trial of a wife-stealer.
+
+I had ridden in with an escort of twenty lances. But I left these in
+the square when I entered the palace and formally made surrender to
+the officer who met me. This officer led me at once into the Chamber of
+Justice, two men-at-arms opening a lane for me through the people with
+the butts of their pikes, so that I came into the open space before my
+judges, and bowed profoundly to Gonzaga.
+
+Coldly he returned the salutation, his prominent eyes regarding me from
+out of that florid, crafty countenance.
+
+On my left, but high up the room and immediately at right angles to the
+judges' tables, sat Galeotto, full-armed. He was flanked on the one
+side by Fra Gervasio, who greeted me with a melancholy smile, and on the
+other by Falcone, who sat rigid.
+
+Opposite to this group on the judges' other hand stood Cosimo. He was
+flushed, and his eyes gleamed as they measured me with haughty triumph.
+From me they passed to Bianca, who followed after me with her women,
+pale, but intrepid and self-contained, her face the whiter by contrast
+with the mourning-gown which she still wore for her father, and which it
+might well come to pass that she should continue hereafter to wear for
+me.
+
+I did not look at her again as she passed on and up towards Galeotto,
+who had risen to receive her. He came some few steps to meet her, and
+escorted her to a seat next to his own, so that Falcone moved down to
+another vacant stool. Her women found place behind her.
+
+An usher set a chair for me, and I, too, sat down, immediately facing
+the Emperor's Lieutenant. Then another usher in a loud voice summoned
+Cosimo to appear and state his grievance.
+
+He advanced a step or two, when Gonzaga raised his hand, to sign to him
+to remain where he was so that all could see him whilst he spoke.
+
+Forthwith, quickly, fluently, and lucidly, as if he had got the thing
+by heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca
+de' Cavalcanti by her father's consent in her father's own Castle of
+Pagliano; how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently
+invested by myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off
+his bride and burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her
+from him, shut up in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his
+quality as her husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano
+against him to his hurt.
+
+Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had
+issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death,
+to make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that
+it was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate
+that I had surrendered. Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy
+Father's authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and
+my life forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of
+Pagliano, which he would hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor.
+
+Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.
+
+The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.
+
+"Have you anything to say?" he asked.
+
+I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.
+
+"Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative," said I. "When
+he says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the
+night of his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others
+abetting me, he would do well to add in the interests of justice, the
+names of those who were my abettors."
+
+Cosimo rose again. "Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at
+issue what caitiffs he employed?" he asked haughtily.
+
+"If they were caitiffs it would not matter," said I. "But they were not.
+Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much.
+The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca's own father, who, having
+discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was
+engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy."
+
+Cosimo shrugged. "These are mere words," he said.
+
+"The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth," I
+cried.
+
+"A prejudiced witness, indeed!" said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga
+nodded, whereupon my heart sank.
+
+"Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were
+with him?" quoth Cosimo. "It will no doubt assist the ends of justice,
+for those men should be standing by him now."
+
+He checked me no more than in time. I had been on the point of citing
+Falcone; and suddenly I perceived that to do so would be to ruin Falcone
+without helping myself.
+
+I looked at my cousin. "In that case," said I, "I will not name them."
+
+Falcone, however, was minded to name himself, for with a grunt he made
+suddenly to rise. But Galeotto stretched an arm across Bianca, and
+forced the equerry back into his seat.
+
+Cosimo saw and smiled. He was very sure of himself by now.
+
+"The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord
+of Pagliano," he said. "And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in
+naming one who is dead. Your excellency will know the precise importance
+to attach to that."
+
+Again his excellency nodded. Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed? My
+calm deserted me.
+
+"Will Messer Cosimo tell your excellency under what circumstances the
+Lord of Pagliano died?" I cried.
+
+"It is yourself should be better able to inform the Court of that,"
+answered Cosimo quickly, "since he died at Pagliano after you had borne
+his daughter thither, as we have proof."
+
+Gonzaga looked at him sharply. "Are you implying, sir, that there is
+a further crime for which Messer Agostino d'Anguissola should be
+indicted?" he inquired.
+
+Cosimo shrugged and pursed his lips. "I will not go so far, since the
+matter of Ettore Cavalcanti's death does not immediately concern me.
+Besides, there is enough contained in the indictment as it stands."
+
+The imputation was none the less terrible, and could not fail of
+an effect upon the minds of the Ten. I was in despair, for at every
+question it seemed that the tide of destruction rose higher about me. I
+deemed myself irrevocably lost. The witnesses I might have called were
+as good as gagged.
+
+Yet there was one last question in my quiver--a question which I thought
+must crumple up his confidence.
+
+"Can you tell his excellency where you were upon your marriage night?" I
+cried hoarsely, my temples throbbing.
+
+Superbly Cosimo looked round at the Court; he shrugged, and shook his
+head as if in utter pity.
+
+"I leave it to your excellency to say where a man should be upon his
+marriage night," he said, with an astounding impudence, and there
+were some who tittered in the crowd behind me. "Let me again beg your
+excellency and your worthinesses to pass to judgment, and so conclude
+this foolish comedy."
+
+Gonzaga nodded gravely, as if entirely approving, whilst with a fat
+jewelled hand he stroked his ample chin.
+
+"I, too, think that it is time," he said, whereupon Cosimo, with a sigh
+of relief, would have resumed his seat but that I stayed him with the
+last thing I had to say.
+
+"My lord," I cried, appealing to Gonzaga, "the true events of that night
+are set forth in a memorial of which two copies were drawn up, one for
+the Pope and the other for your excellency, as the Emperor's vicegerent.
+Shall I recite its contents--that Messer Cosimo may be examined upon
+them.
+
+"It is not necessary," came Gonzaga's icy voice. "The memorial is here
+before me." And he tapped a document upon the table. Then he fixed his
+prominent eyes upon Cosimo. "You are aware of its contents?" he asked.
+
+Cosimo bowed, and Galeotto moved at last, for the first time since the
+trial's inception.
+
+Until now he had sat like a carved image, save when he had thrust out
+a hand to restrain Falcone, and his attitude had filled me with an
+unspeakable dread. But at this moment he leaned forward turning an ear
+towards Cosimo, as if anxious not to miss a single word that the man
+might utter. And Cosimo, intent as he was, did not observe the movement.
+
+"I saw its fellow at the Vatican," said my cousin, "and since the
+Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose
+signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon
+which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola
+before you here.
+
+"Thus is that memorial disposed of as a false and lying document."
+
+"And yet," said Gonzaga thoughtfully, his heavy lip between thumb and
+forefinger, "it bears, amongst others, the signature of the Lord of
+Pagliano's confessor."
+
+"Without violation of the seal of the confessional, it is impossible
+for that friar to testify," was the answer. "And the Holy Father cannot
+grant him dispensation for so much. His signature, therefore, stands for
+nothing."
+
+There followed a moment's silence. The Ten whispered among themselves.
+But Gonzaga never consulted them by so much as a glance. They appeared
+to serve none but a decorative office in that Court of his, for they
+bore no share in the dispensing of a justice of which he constituted
+himself the sole arbiter.
+
+At last the Governor spoke.
+
+"It seems, indeed, that there is no more to say and the Court has a
+clear course before it, since the Emperor cannot contravene the mandates
+of the Holy See. Nothing remains, then, but to deliver sentence;
+unless..."
+
+He paused, and his eyes singularly sly, his lips pursed almost
+humorously, he turned his glance upon Galeotto.
+
+"Ser Cosimo," he said, "has pronounced this memorial a false and lying
+document. Is there anything that you, Messer Galeotto, as its author,
+can have to tell the Court?"
+
+Instantly the condottiero rose, his great scarred face very solemn, his
+eyes brooding. He advanced almost to the very centre of the table, so
+that he all but stood immediately before Gonzaga, yet sideways, so that
+I had him in profile, whilst he fully faced Cosimo.
+
+Cosimo at least had ceased to smile. His handsome white face had lost
+some of its supercilious confidence. Here was something unexpected,
+something upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not
+provided.
+
+"What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience,"
+Gonzaga answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some
+of Cosimo's uneasiness must have been dissipated.
+
+I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a
+word of what was to follow. The blood that had earlier surged to my face
+had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.
+
+Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.
+
+"Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which
+you acted in summoning hither the accused?"
+
+Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto's hands. The
+condottiero studied it, frowning. Then he smote it sharply with his
+right hand.
+
+"This document is not in order," he announced.
+
+"How?" quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now,
+convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.
+
+"You are here described as Cosimo d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and
+Carmina. These titles are not yours."
+
+The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo's cheeks.
+
+"Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi,"
+he replied.
+
+Gonzaga spoke. "The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke,
+and the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by
+Imperial decree. All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible
+to their original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to
+Caesar."
+
+Cosimo continued to smile. "This is no matter of a confiscation effected
+by Duke Pier Luigi," he said. "The confiscation and my own investiture
+in the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d'Anguissola's
+recreancy--at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is
+expressly announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and
+in the brief which lies before your excellency. Nor was such express
+announcement necessary, for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to
+the Tyranny of Mondolfo, it follows that upon his being outlawed and his
+life forfeit I enter upon my succession."
+
+Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated. But Galeotto showed no sign
+of defeat.
+
+"Where is this bull you speak of?" he demanded, as though he were the
+judge himself.
+
+Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga. "Does your excellency ask
+to see it?"
+
+"Assuredly," said Gonzaga shortly. "I may not take your word for its
+existence."
+
+Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet,
+unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood
+near Galeotto--not more than an arm's length between them.
+
+The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto. "It seems in order,"
+he said.
+
+Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he
+looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre
+now wore a smile.
+
+"It is as irregular as the other," he said. "It is entirely worthless."
+
+"Worthless?" quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful.
+"But have I not already explained..."
+
+"It sets forth here," cut in Galeotto with assurance, "that the fief of
+Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola. Now I
+submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses," he added, turning
+aside, "that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since
+Mondolfo and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola,
+and could no more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the
+back of a naked man--unless," he added, sneering, "a papal bull is
+capable of miracles."
+
+Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of
+the enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court
+the silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.
+
+"Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong--that they never
+were the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?" he asked.
+
+"That is what I say," returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and
+formidable in his gleaming armour.
+
+"To whom, then, did they belong?"
+
+"They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola--Agostino's father."
+
+Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his
+countenance.
+
+"What folly is this?" he cried. "Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia
+eight years ago."
+
+"That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has
+left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own
+son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi
+lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.
+
+"But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this
+scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask." And he pointed
+to his own face.
+
+I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni
+d'Anguissola--my father! And my heart had never told me so!
+
+In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that
+should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
+
+How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had
+mentioned as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could
+have been myself?
+
+I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.
+
+"Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the
+hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me
+from Pope and Pope's bastards; now that I have accomplished my life's
+work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth
+again and resume the state that is my own.
+
+"There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true
+identity; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and
+there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me
+when I lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at
+Perugia."
+
+"So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against
+my son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and
+get them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
+other than myself."
+
+Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by
+this shattering blow.
+
+And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But
+after being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he
+mistrusted now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with
+as a mouse by this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.
+
+"We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice," purred the
+Lieutenant. "There is this memorial, my lord," he said, and tapped the
+document, his eyes upon my father.
+
+"Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand,
+it can, I think, be done," he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.
+
+"You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose
+names are here cannot be admitted to testify."
+
+Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. "Do you defy the Pope?" he
+thundered.
+
+"If necessary," was the answer. "I have done so all my life."
+
+Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. "It is not I who have branded this memorial
+false," he said, "but the Holy Father himself."
+
+"The Emperor," said my father, "may opine that in this matter the Holy
+Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is
+myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted
+to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his
+confessor."
+
+"We cannot admit the confessor," Gonzaga thrust in.
+
+"Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor
+that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession
+followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal
+of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial
+alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.
+
+"And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight," he continued in a
+ringing voice, "that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore
+Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so
+will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's
+vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a
+deed--for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage."
+
+"In that you lie!" screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at
+his throat and brow swelling like ropes.
+
+A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.
+Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the
+fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very
+calm again after his late furious mood.
+
+"Be it so," he said. "Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you
+to prove it upon my body."
+
+And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the
+skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower
+half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
+
+Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir
+there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry--however
+much they might be falling now into desuetude--if Cosimo took up the
+glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all
+men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.
+
+For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him.
+He--who had come to this court so confidently--had walked into a trap.
+He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat
+offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the
+glove.
+
+"Upon your body, then--God helping me," he said.
+
+Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught
+his arm.
+
+"Let me! Father, let me!"
+
+He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed
+moist and singularly soft.
+
+"My son!" he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's
+caress.
+
+"My father!" I answered him, a knot in my throat.
+
+"Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name,"
+he said. "But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca
+to the Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail.
+Gervasio shall go with you."
+
+And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
+
+"My lord," he said, "will you determine when and where this battle is to
+be fought?"
+
+"Upon the instant," answered my father, "on the banks of Po with a score
+of lances to keep the lists."
+
+Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. "Do you agree to this?"
+
+"It cannot be too soon for me," replied the quivering Cosimo, black
+hatred in his glance.
+
+"Be it so, then," said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with
+him.
+
+My father pressed my hand again. "To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come,"
+he said, and on that we parted.
+
+My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders. In so far as it
+concerned myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
+
+At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to
+the Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made
+my way through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where
+my lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight
+of me.
+
+Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We
+knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's
+lowest step.
+
+Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the
+church.
+
+Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
+
+And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my
+young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings
+in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous
+mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of
+sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had
+sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and
+veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me--a strolling
+saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought
+after holiness.
+
+But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this
+altar, as I knew.
+
+Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the
+heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year
+at Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife. That
+cross of penitence--so singularly condign to my sin--I had borne with
+fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon
+and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was
+complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that
+pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this
+pure maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had
+come to learn that Love--God's greatest gift--is the great sanctifier of
+man.
+
+That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I
+did not for a moment doubt.
+
+Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
+
+Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
+
+He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He
+smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared
+to look at last.
+
+Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him
+followed Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
+
+"Let the will of Heaven be done," said my father. And Gervasio came down
+to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strolling Saint, by Raphael Sabatini
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diff --git a/old/3423.zip b/old/3423.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini
+#13 in our series by Raphael Sabatini
+
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+Title: The Strolling Saint
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+Author: Raphael Sabatini
+
+Release Date:  September, 2002  [Etext #3423]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini
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+
+The Strolling Saint
+Being the Confessions of the High & Mighty Agostino D'Anguissola
+Tyrant of Mondolfo & Lord of Carmina, in the State of Piacenza
+
+By Raphael Sabatini
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+THE OBLATE
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I.  NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+   II.  GINO FALCONE
+
+  III.  THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+   IV.  LUISINA
+
+    V.  REBELLION
+
+   VI.  FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+GIULIANA
+
+
+    I.  THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI
+
+   II.  HUMANITIES
+
+  III.  PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+   IV.  MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+    V.  PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+   VI.  THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+    I.  THE HOME-COMING
+
+   II.  THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+  III.  GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+   IV.  THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+    V.  THE RENUNCIATION
+
+   VI.  HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+  VII.  INTRUDERS
+
+ VIII.  THE VISION
+
+   IX.  THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+THE WORLD
+
+
+    I.  PAGLIANO
+
+   II.  THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+  III.  PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+   IV.  MADONNA BIANCA
+
+    V.  THE WARNING
+
+   VI.  THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+  VII.  THE PAPAL BULL
+
+ VIII.  THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+   IX.  THE RETURN
+
+    X.  THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+   XI.  THE PENANCE
+
+  XII.  BLOOD
+
+ XIII.  THE OVERTHROW
+
+  XIV.  THE CITATION
+
+   XV.  THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+THE OBLATE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+NOMEN ET OMEN
+
+
+In seeking other than in myself--as men will--the causes of my
+tribulations, I have often inclined to lay the blame of much of the ill
+that befell me, and the ill that in my sinful life I did to others, upon
+those who held my mother at the baptismal font and concerted that she
+should bear the name of Monica.
+
+There are in life many things which, in themselves, seeming to the vulgar
+and the heedless to be trivial and without consequence, may yet be causes
+pregnant of terrible effects, mainsprings of Destiny itself.  Amid such
+portentous trifles I would number the names so heedlessly bestowed upon us.
+
+It surprises me that in none of the philosophic writings of the learned
+scholars of antiquity can I find that this matter of names has been touched
+upon, much less given the importance of which I account it to be deserving.
+
+Possibly it is because no one of them ever suffered, as I have suffered,
+from the consequences of a name.  Had it but been so, they might in their
+weighty and impressive manner have set down a lesson on the subject, and so
+relieved me--who am all-conscious of my shortcomings in this direction-
+from the necessity of repairing that omission out of my own experience.
+
+Let it then, even at this late hour, be considered what a subtle influence
+for good or ill, what a very mould of character may lie within a name.
+
+To the dull clod of earth, perhaps, or, again, to the truly strong-minded
+nature that is beyond such influences, it can matter little that he be
+called Alexander or Achilles; and once there was a man named Judas who fell
+so far short of the noble associations of that name that he has changed for
+all time the very sound and meaning of it.
+
+But to him who has been endowed with imagination--that greatest boon and
+greatest affliction of mankind--or whose nature is such as to crave for
+models, the name he bears may become a thing portentous by the images it
+conjures up of some mighty dead who bore it erstwhile and whose life
+inspires to emulation.
+
+Whatever may be accounted the general value of this premiss, at least as it
+concerns my mother I shall hope to prove it apt.
+
+They named her Monica.  Why the name was chosen I have never learnt; but I
+do not conceive that there was any reason for the choice other than the
+taste of her parents in the matter of sounds.  It is a pleasing enough
+name, euphoniously considered, and beyond that--as is so commonly the
+case--no considerations were taken into account.
+
+To her, however, at once imaginative and of a feeble and dependent spirit,
+the name was fateful.  St. Monica was made the special object of her
+devotions in girlhood, and remained so later when she became a wife.  The
+Life of St. Monica was the most soiled and fingered portion of an old
+manuscript collection of the life histories of a score or so of saints that
+was one of her dearest possessions.  To render herself worthy of the name
+she bore, to model her life upon that of the sainted woman who had sorrowed
+and rejoiced so much in her famous offspring, became the obsession of my
+mother's soul.  And but that St. Monica had wed and borne a son, I do not
+believe that my mother would ever have adventured herself within the bonds
+of wedlock.
+
+How often in the stressful, stormy hours of my most unhappy youth did I not
+wish that she had preferred the virginal life of the cloister, and thus
+spared me the heavy burden of an existence which her unholy and mistaken
+saintliness went so near to laying waste!
+
+I like to think that in the days when my father wooed her, she forgot for a
+spell in the strong arms of that fierce ghibelline the pattern upon which
+it had become her wont to weave her life; so that in all that drab,
+sackcloth tissue there was embroidered at least one warm and brilliant
+little wedge of colour; so that in all that desert waste, in all that
+parched aridity of her existence, there was at least one little patch of
+garden-land, fragrant, fruitful, and cool.
+
+I like to think it, for at best such a spell must have been brief indeed;
+and for that I pity her--I, who once blamed her so very bitterly.  Before
+ever I was born it must have ceased; whilst still she bore me she put from
+her lips the cup that holds the warm and potent wine of life, and turned
+her once more to her fasting, her contemplations, and her prayers.
+
+That was in the year in which the battle of Pavia was fought and won by the
+Emperor.  My father, who had raised a condotta to lend a hand in the
+expulsion of the French, was left for dead upon that glorious field.
+Afterwards he was found still living, but upon the very edge and border of
+Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have little
+doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation--a punishment upon her
+for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence from the narrow
+flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the footsteps of Holy
+Monica.
+
+How much the love of my father may still have swayed her I do not know.
+But to me it seems that in what next she did there was more of duty, more
+of penitence, more of reparation for the sin of having been a woman as God
+made her, than of love.  Indeed, I almost know this to be so.  In delicate
+health as she was, she bade her people prepare a litter for her, and so she
+had herself carried into Piacenza, to the Church of St. Augustine.  There,
+having confessed and received the Sacrament, upon her knees before a minor
+altar consecrated to St. Monica, she made solemn vow that if my father's
+life was spared she would devote the unborn child she carried to the
+service of God and Holy Church.
+
+Two months thereafter word was brought her that my father, his recovery by
+now well-nigh complete, was making his way home.
+
+On the morrow was I born--a votive offering, an oblate, ere yet I had drawn
+the breath of life.
+
+It has oft diverted me to conjecture what would have chanced had I been
+born a girl--since that could have afforded her no proper parallel.  In the
+circumstance that I was a boy, I have no faintest doubt but that she saw a
+Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and most natural
+happenings.  It was as it should be; it was as it had been with the Sainted
+Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk.  Monica had borne a
+son, and he had been named Augustine.  It was very well.  My name, too,
+should be Augustine, that I might walk in the ways of that other Augustine,
+that great theologian whose mother's name was Monica.
+
+And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
+the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me.  It was made to do so.
+Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint--with such
+castrations as my tender years demanded--was told me and repeated until I
+knew by heart its every incident and act.  Anon his writings were my
+school-books.  His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at which
+I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
+
+And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my life,
+that was intended to have been so different, it is from his Confessions
+that I have gathered inspiration to set down my own--although betwixt the
+two you may discern little indeed that is comparable.
+
+I was prenatally made a votive offering for the preservation of my father's
+life, for his restoration to my mother safe and sound.  That restoration
+she had, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than she was, she
+must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the end.  For betwixt
+my father and my mother I became from my earliest years a subject of
+contentions that drove them far asunder and set them almost in enmity the
+one against the other.
+
+I was his only son, heir to the noble lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina.
+Was it likely, then, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the seclusion
+of the cloister, whilst our lordship passed into the hands of our renegade,
+guelphic cousin, Cosimo d'Anguissola of Codogno?
+
+I can picture his outbursts at the very thought of it; I can hear him
+reasoning, upbraiding, storming.  But he was as an ocean of energy hurling
+himself against the impassive rock of my mother's pietistic obstinacy.
+She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would suffer
+tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled.  And hers was a
+manner against which that strong man, my father, never could prevail.
+She would stand before him white-faced and mute, never presuming to return
+an answer to his pleading or to enter into argument.
+
+"I have vowed," she would say, just once; and thereafter, avoiding his
+fiery glance, she would bow her head meekly, fold her hands, the very
+incarnation of long-suffering and martyrdom.
+
+Anon, as the storm of his anger crashed about her, two glistening lines
+would appear upon her pallid face, and her tears--horrid, silent weeping
+that brought no trace of emotion to her countenance--showered down.  At
+that he would fling out of her presence and away, cursing the day in which
+he had mated with a fool.
+
+His hatred of these moods of hers, of the vow she had made which bade fair
+to deprive him of his son, drove him ere long to hatred of the cause of it
+all.  A ghibelline by inheritance, he was not long in becoming an utter
+infidel, at war with Rome and the Pontifical sway.  Nor was he one to
+content himself with passive enmity.  He must be up and doing, seeking the
+destruction of the thing he hated.  And so it befell that upon the death of
+Pope Clement (the second Medici Pontiff), profiting by the weak condition
+from which the papal army had not yet recovered since the Emperor's
+invasion and the sack of Rome, my father raised an army and attempted to
+shatter the ancient yoke which Julius II had imposed upon Parma and
+Piacenza when he took them from the State of Milan.
+
+A little lad of seven was I at the time, and well do I remember the martial
+stir and bustle there was about our citadel of Mondolfo, the armed
+multitudes that thronged the fortress that was our home, or drilled and
+manoeuvred upon the green plains beyond the river.
+
+I was all wonder-stricken and fascinated by the sight.  My blood was
+quickened by the brazen notes of their trumpets, and to balance a pike in
+my hands was to procure me the oddest and most exquisite thrills that I had
+known.  But my mother, perceiving with alarm the delight afforded me by
+such warlike matters, withdrew me so that I might see as little as possible
+of it all.
+
+And there followed scenes between her and my father of which hazy
+impressions linger in my memory.  No longer was she a mute statue, enduring
+with fearful stoicism his harsh upbraidings.  She was turned into a
+suppliant, now fierce, now lachrymose; by her prayers, by her prophecies of
+the evil that must attend his ungodly aims, she strove with all her poor,
+feeble might to turn him from the path of revolt to which he had set his
+foot.
+
+And he would listen now in silence, his face grim and sardonic; and when
+from very weariness the flow of her inspired oratory began to falter, he
+would deliver ever the same answer.
+
+"It is you who have driven me to this; and this is no more than a
+beginning.  You have made a vow--an outrageous votive offering of something
+that is not yours to bestow.  That vow you cannot break, you say.  Be it
+so.  But I must seek a remedy elsewhere.  To save my son from the Church to
+which you would doom him, I will, ere I have done, tear down the Church and
+make an end of it in Italy."
+
+And at that she would shrivel up before him with a little moan of horror,
+taking her poor white face in her hands.
+
+"Blasphemer!" she would cry in mingled terror and aversion, and upon that
+word--the "Amen" to all their conferences in those last days they spent
+together--she would turn, and dragging me with her, all stunned and
+bewildered by something beyond my understanding, she would hurry me to the
+chapel of the citadel, and there, before the high altar, prostrate herself
+and spend long hours in awful sobbing intercessions.
+
+And so the gulf between them widened until the day of his departure.
+
+I was not present at their parting.  What farewells may have been spoken
+between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the other that
+they were destined never to meet again, I do not know.
+
+I remember being rudely awakened one dark morning early in the year, and
+lifted from my bed by arms to whose clasp I never failed to thrill.  Close
+to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of great eyes,
+humid with tears, considered me passionately.  Then a ringing voice--that
+commanding voice that was my father's--spoke to Falcone, the man-at-arms
+who attended him and who ever acted as his equerry.
+
+"Shall we take him with us to the wars, Falcone?"
+
+My little arms went round his neck and tightened there convulsively until
+the steel rim of his gorget bit into them.
+
+"Take me!" I sobbed.  "Take me!"
+
+He laughed for answer, with something of exultation in his voice.  He swung
+me to his shoulder, and held me poised there, looking up at me.  And then
+he laughed again.
+
+"Dost hear the whelp?" he cried to Falcone.  "Still with his milk-teeth in
+his head, and already does he yelp for battle!"
+
+Then he looked up at me again, and swore one of his great oaths.
+
+"I can trust you, son of mine," he laughed.  "They'll never make a
+shaveling of you.  When your thews are grown it will not be on thuribles
+they'll spend their strength, or I'm a liar else.  Be patient yet awhile,
+and we shall ride together, never doubt it."
+
+With that he pulled me down again to kiss me, and he clasped me to his
+breast so that the studs of his armour remained stamped upon my tender
+flesh after he had departed.
+
+The next instant he was gone, and I lay weeping, a very lonely little
+child.
+
+But in the revolt that he led he had not reckoned upon the might and vigour
+of the new Farnese Pontiff.  He had conceived, perhaps, that one pope must
+be as supine as another, and that Paul III would prove no more redoubtable
+than Clement VIII.  To his bitter cost did he discover his mistake.  Beyond
+the Po he was surprised by the Pontifical army under Ferrante Orsini, and
+there his force was cut to pieces.
+
+My father himself escaped and with him some other gentlemen of Piacenza,
+notably one of the scions of the great house of Pallavicini, who took a
+wound in the leg which left him lame for life, so that ever after he was
+known as Pallavicini il Zopo.
+
+They were all under the pope's ban, outlaws with a price upon the head of
+each, hunted and harried from State to State by the papal emissaries, so
+that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed, within
+the State of Piacenza, which had been rudely punished for the
+insubordination it had permitted to be reared upon its soil.
+
+And Mondolfo went near to suffering confiscation.  Assuredly it would have
+suffered it but for the influence exerted on my mother's and my own behalf
+by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere, seconded by
+that guelphic cousin of my father's, Cosimo d'Anguissola, who, after me,
+was heir to Mondolfo, and had, therefore, good reason not to see it
+confiscated to the Holy See.
+
+Thus it fell out that we were left in peace and not made to suffer from my
+father's rebellion.  For that, he himself should suffer when taken.  But
+taken he never was.  From time to time we had news of him.  Now he was in
+Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for his
+safety's sake.  And then one night, six years later, a scarred and grizzled
+veteran, coming none knew whence, dropped from exhaustion in the courtyard
+of our citadel, whither he had struggled.  Some went to minister to him,
+and amongst these there was a groom who recognized him.
+
+"It is Messer Falcone!" he cried, and ran to bear the news to my mother,
+with whom I was at table at the time.  With us, too, was Fra Gervasio, our
+chaplain.
+
+It was grim news that old Falcone brought us.  He had never quitted my
+father in those six weary years of wandering until now that my father was
+beyond the need of his or any other's service.
+
+There had been a rising and a bloody battle at Perugia, Falcone informed
+us.  An attempt had been made to overthrow the rule there of Pier Luigi
+Farnese, Duke of Castro, the pope's own abominable son.  For some months my
+father had been enjoying the shelter of the Perugians, and he had repaid
+their hospitality by joining them and bearing arms with them in the
+ill-starred blow they struck for liberty.  They had been crushed in the
+encounter by the troops of Pier Luigi, and my father had been among the
+slain.
+
+And well was it for him that he came by so fine and merciful an end,
+thought I, when I had heard the tale of horrors that had been undergone by
+the unfortunates who had fallen into the hands of Farnese.
+
+My mother heard him to the end without any sign of emotion.  She sat there,
+cold and impassive as a thing of marble, what time Fra Gervasio--who was my
+father's foster-brother, as you shall presently learn more fully--sank his
+head upon his arm and wept like a child to hear the piteous tale of it.
+And whether from force of example, whether from the memories that came to
+me so poignantly in that moment of a fine strong man with a brown, shaven
+face and a jovial, mighty voice, who had promised me that one day we should
+ride together, I fell a-weeping too.
+
+When the tale was done, my mother coldly gave orders that Falcone be cared
+for, and went to pray, taking me with her.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered what was the tenour of her prayers that
+night.  Were they for the rest of the great turbulent soul that was gone
+forth in sin, in arms against the Holy Church, excommunicate and foredoomed
+to Hell?  Or were they of thanksgiving that at last she was completely
+mistress of my destinies, her mind at rest, since no longer need she fear
+opposition to her wishes concerning me?  I do not know, nor will I do her
+the possible injustice that I should were I to guess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GINO FALCONE
+
+
+When I think of my mother now I do not see her as she appeared in any of
+the scenes that already I have set down.  There is one picture of her that
+is burnt as with an acid upon my memory, a picture which the mere mention
+of her name, the mere thought of her, never fails to evoke like a ghost
+before me.  I see her always as she appeared one evening when she came
+suddenly and without warning upon Falcone and me in the armoury of the
+citadel.
+
+I see her again, a tall, slight, graceful woman, her oval face of the
+translucent pallor of wax, framed in a nun-like coif, over which was thrown
+a long black veil that fell to her waist and there joined the black
+unrelieved draperies that she always wore.  This sable garb was no mere
+mourning for my father.  His death had made as little change in her apparel
+as in her general life.  It had been ever thus as far as my memory can
+travel; always had her raiment been the same, those trailing funereal
+draperies.  Again I see them, and that pallid face with its sunken eyes,
+around which there were great brown patches that seemed to intensify the
+depth at which they were set and the sombre lustre of them on the rare
+occasions when she raised them; those slim, wax-like hands, with a chaplet
+of beads entwined about the left wrist and hanging thence to a silver
+crucifix at the end.
+
+She moved almost silently, as a ghost; and where she passed she seemed to
+leave a trail of sorrow and sadness in her wake, just as a worldly woman
+leaves a trail of perfume.
+
+Thus looked she when she came upon us there that evening, and thus will she
+live for ever in my memory, for that was the first time that I knew
+rebellion against the yoke she was imposing upon me; the first time that
+our wills clashed, hers and mine; and as a consequence, maybe, was it the
+first time that I considered her with purpose and defined her to myself.
+
+The thing befell some three months after the coming of Falcone to Mondolfo.
+
+That the old man-at-arms should have exerted a strong attraction upon my
+young mind, you will readily understand.  His intimate connection with that
+dimly remembered father, who stood secretly in my imagination in the
+position that my mother would have had St. Augustine occupy, drew me to his
+equerry like metal to a lodestone.
+
+And this attraction was reciprocal.  Of his own accord old Falcone sought
+me out, lingering in my neighbourhood at first like a dog that looks for a
+kindly word.  He had not long to wait.  Daily we had our meetings and our
+talks and daily did these grow in length; and they were stolen hours of
+which I said no word to my mother, nor did others for a season, so that all
+was well.
+
+Our talks were naturally of my father, and it was through Falcone that I
+came to know something of the greatness of that noble-souled, valiant
+gentleman, whom the old servant painted for me as one who combined with the
+courage of the lion the wiliness of the fox.
+
+He discoursed of their feats of arms together, he described charges of
+horse that set my nerves a-tingle as in fancy I heard the blare of trumpets
+and the deafening thunder of hooves upon the turf.  Of escalades, of
+surprises, of breaches stormed, of camisades and ambushes, of dark
+treacheries and great heroisms did he descant to fire my youthful fancy, to
+fill me first with delight, and then with frenzy when I came to think that
+in all these things my life must have no part, that for me another road was
+set--a grey, gloomy road at the end of which was dangled a reward which did
+not greatly interest me.
+
+And then one day from fighting as an endeavour, as a pitting of force
+against force and astuteness against astuteness, he came to talk of
+fighting as an art.
+
+It was from old Falcone that first I heard of Marozzo, that miracle-worker
+in weapons, that master at whose academy in Bologna the craft of
+swordsmanship was to be acquired, so that from fighting with his irons as a
+beast with its claws, by sheer brute strength and brute instinct, man might
+by practised skill and knowledge gain advantages against which mere
+strength must spend itself in vain.
+
+What he told me amazed me beyond anything that I had ever heard, even from
+himself, and what he told me he illustrated, flinging himself into the
+poises taught by Marozzo that I might appreciate the marvellous science of
+the thing.
+
+Thus was it that for the first time I made the acquaintance--an
+acquaintance held by few men in those days--of those marvellous guards of
+Marozzo's devising; Falcone showed me the difference between the mandritto
+and the roverso, the false edge and the true, the stramazone and the tondo;
+and he left me spellbound by that marvellous guard appropriately called by
+Marozzo the iron girdle--a low guard on the level of the waist, which on
+the very parry gives an opening for the point, so that in one movement you
+may ward and strike.
+
+At last, when I questioned him, he admitted that during their wanderings,
+my father, with that recklessness that alternated curiously with his
+caution, had ventured into the city of Bologna notwithstanding that it was
+a Papal fief, for the sole purpose of studying with Marozzo that Falcone
+himself had daily accompanied him, witnessed the lessons, and afterwards
+practised with my father, so that he had come to learn most of the secrets
+that Marozzo taught.
+
+One day, at last, very timidly, like one who, whilst overconscious of his
+utter unworthiness, ventures to crave a boon which he knows himself without
+the right to expect, I asked Falcone would he show me something of
+Marozzo's art with real weapons.
+
+I had feared a rebuff.  I had thought that even old Falcone might laugh at
+one predestined to the study of theology, desiring to enter into the
+mysteries of sword-craft.  But my fears were far indeed from having a
+foundation.  There was no laughter in the equerry's grey eyes, whilst the
+smile upon his lips was a smile of gladness, of eagerness, almost of
+thankfulness to see me so set.
+
+And so it came to pass that daily thereafter did we practise for an hour or
+so in the armoury with sword and buckler, and with every lesson my
+proficiency with the iron grew in a manner that Falcone termed prodigious,
+swearing that I was born to the sword, that the knack of it was in the very
+blood of me.
+
+It may be that affection for me caused him to overrate the progress that I
+made and the aptitude I showed; it may even be that what he said was no
+more than the good-natured flattery of one who loved me and would have me
+take pleasure in myself.  And yet when I look back at the lad I was, I
+incline to think that he spoke no more than sober truth.
+
+I have alluded to the curious, almost inexplicable delight it afforded me
+to feel in my hands the balance of a pike for the first time.  Fain would I
+tell you something of all that I felt when first my fingers closed about a
+sword-hilt, the forefinger passed over the quillons in the new manner, as
+Falcone showed me.  But it defies all power of words.  The sweet seduction
+of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the blade, were things that
+thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of the first kiss of passion.
+It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can think of nothing else in life
+that is worthy of being compared with it.
+
+I was at the time a lad in my thirteenth year, but I was well-grown and
+strong beyond my age, despite the fact that my mother had restrained me
+from all those exercises of horsemanship, of arms, and of wrestling by
+which boys of my years attain development.  I stood almost as tall then as
+Falcone himself--who was accounted of a good height--and if my reach fell
+something short of his, I made up for this by the youthful quickness of my
+movements; so that soon--unless out of good nature he refrained from
+exerting his full vigour--I found myself Falcone's match.
+
+Fra Gervasio, who was then my tutor, and with whom my mornings were spent
+in perfecting my Latin and giving me the rudiments of Greek, soon had his
+suspicions of where the hour of the siesta was spent by me with old
+Falcone.  But the good, saintly man held his peace, a matter which at that
+time intrigued me.  Others there were, however, who thought well to bear
+the tale of our doings to my mother, and thus it happened that she came
+upon us that day in the armoury, each of us in shirt and breeches at
+sword-and-target play.
+
+We fell apart upon her entrance, each with a guilty feeling, like children
+caught in a forbidden orchard, for all that Falcone held himself proudly
+erect, his grizzled head thrown back, his eyes cold and hard.
+
+A long while it seemed ere she spoke, and once or twice I shot her a
+furtive comprehensive glance, and saw her as I shall ever see her to my
+dying day.
+
+Her eyes were upon me.  I do not believe that she gave Falcone a single
+thought at first.  It was at me only that she looked, and with such a
+sorrow in her glance to see me so vigorous and lusty, as surely could not
+have been fetched there by the sight of my corpse itself.  Her lips moved
+awhile in silence; and whether she was at her everlasting prayers, or
+whether she was endeavouring to speak but could not for emotion, I do not
+know.  At last her voice came, laden with a chill reproach.
+
+"Agostino!" she said, and waited as if for some answer from me.
+
+It was in that instant that rebellion stirred in me.  Her coming had turned
+me cold, for all that my body was overheated from the exercise and I was
+sweating furiously.  Now, at the sound of her voice, something of the
+injustice that oppressed me, something of the unreasoning bigotry that
+chained and fettered me, stood clear before my mental vision for the first
+time.  It warmed me again with the warmth of sullen indignation.  I
+returned her no answer beyond a curtly respectful invitation that she
+should speak her mind, couched--as had been her reproof--in a single word
+of address.
+
+"Madonna?" I challenged, and emulating something of old Falcone's attitude,
+I drew myself erect, flung back my head, and brought my eyes to the level
+of her own by an effort of will such as I had never yet exerted.
+
+It was, I think, the bravest thing I ever did.  I felt, in doing it, as one
+feels who has nerved himself to enter fire.  And when the thing was done,
+the ease of it surprised me.  There followed no catastrophe such as I
+expected.  Before my glance, grown suddenly so very bold, her own eyes
+drooped and fell away as was her habit.  She spoke thereafter without
+looking at me, in that cold, emotionless voice that was peculiar to her
+always, the voice of one in whom the founts of all that is sweet and
+tolerant and tender in life are for ever frozen.
+
+"What are you doing with weapons, Agostino?" she asked me.
+
+"As you see, madam mother, I am at practice," I answered, and out of the
+corner of my eye I caught the grim approving twitch of old Falcone's lips.
+
+"At practice?" she echoed, dully as one who does not understand.  Then very
+slowly she shook her sorrowful head.  "Men practise what they must one day
+perform, Agostino.  To your books, then, and leave swords for bloody men,
+nor ever let me see you again with weapons in your hands if you respect
+me."
+
+"Had you not come hither, madam mother, you had been spared the sight
+to-day," I answered with some lingering spark of my rebellious fire still
+smouldering.
+
+"It was God's will that I should come to set a term to such vanities before
+they take too strong a hold upon you," answered she.  "Lay down those
+weapons."
+
+Had she been angry, I think I could have withstood her.  Anger in her at
+such a time must have been as steel upon the flint of my own nature.  But
+against that incarnation of sorrow and sadness, my purpose, my strength of
+character were turned to water.  By similar means had she ever prevailed
+with my poor father.  And I had, too, the habit of obedience which is not
+so lightly broken as I had at first accounted possible.
+
+Sullenly then I set down my sword upon a bench that stood against the wall,
+and my target with it.  As I turned aside to do so, her gloomy eyes were
+poised for an instant upon Falcone, who stood grim and silent.  Then they
+were lowered again ere she began to address him.
+
+"You have done very ill, Falcone," said she.  "You have abused my trust in
+you, and you have sought to pervert my son and to lead him into ways of
+evil."
+
+He started under that reproof like a fiery stallion under the spur.  His
+face flushed scarlet.  The habit of obedience may have been strong in
+Falcone too; but it was obedience to men; with women he had never had much
+to do, old warrior though he was.  Moreover, in this he felt that an
+affront had been put upon the memory of Giovanni d'Anguissola, who was my
+father and who went nigh to being Falcone's god.  And this his answer
+plainly showed.
+
+"The ways into which I lead your son, Madonna," said he in a low voice that
+boomed up and echoed in the groined ceiling overhead, "are the ways that
+were trod by my lord his father.  And who says that the ways of Giovanni
+d'Anguissola were evil ways lies foully, be he man or woman, patrician or
+villein, pope or devil."  And upon that he paused magnificently, his eyes
+aflash.
+
+She shuddered under his rough speech.  Then answered without looking up,
+and with no trace of anger in her voice:
+
+"You are restored to health and strength by now, Messer Falcone.  The
+seneschal shall have orders to pay you ten gold ducats in discharge of all
+that may be still your due from us.  See that by night you have left
+Mondolfo."
+
+And then, without changing her deadly inflection, or even making a
+noticeable pause, "Come, Agostino," she commanded.
+
+But I did not move.  Her words had fixed me there with horror.  I heard
+from Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob.  I dared not look
+at him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and
+self-contained.
+
+What would he do, what would he say?  Oh, she had done a cruel, a bitterly
+cruel wrong.  This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched from wounds
+that he had taken in my father's service, to be turned away in his old age,
+as we should not have turned away a dog!  It was a monstrous thing.
+Mondolfo was his home.  The Anguissola were his family, and their honour
+was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of his own.  To cast
+him out thus!
+
+All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time, as I
+waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that dismissal.
+
+He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that,
+without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old
+Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
+
+Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise.  And
+then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that I had
+looked for.  Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he dropped
+on one knee before me.
+
+"My lord!" he cried, and before he added another word I knew already what
+else he was about to say.  For never yet had I been so addressed in my
+lordship of Mondolfo.  To all there I was just the Madonnino.  But to
+Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.
+
+"My lord," he said, then.  "Is it your wish that I should go?"
+
+I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother's voice
+came cold and acid.
+
+"The Madonnino's wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone.  It is I
+who order your departure."
+
+Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued to
+address himself to me.
+
+"You are the master here, my lord," he urged.  "You are the law in
+Mondolfo.  You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your
+will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail."
+
+He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain before
+me all these months, yet which I had not seen.
+
+"I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord," he added; and then, almost
+in a snarl of defiance, "I obey none other," he concluded, "nor pope nor
+devil."
+
+"Agostino, I am waiting for you," came my mother's voice from the doorway
+
+Something had me by the throat.  It was Temptation, and old Falcone was the
+tempter.  More than that was he--though how much more I did not dream, nor
+with what authority he acted there.  He was the Mentor who showed me the
+road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow I might shiver
+the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the cobwebs that they
+were.  He tested me, too; tried my courage and my will; and to my undoing
+was it that he found me wanting in that hour.  My regrets for him went near
+to giving me the resolution that I lacked.  Yet even these fell short.
+
+I would to God I had given heed to him.  I would to God I had flung back my
+head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of Mondolfo,
+and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
+
+I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such fine
+spirit as he sought to inspire in me.  Had I succeeded I had established my
+dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much of misery, of
+anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been spared!
+
+The hour was crucial, though I knew it not.  I stood at a parting of ways;
+yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so invitingly
+he beckoned me.
+
+And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I
+strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown
+faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled my
+father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the
+strength of my poor young soul to snap.
+
+"Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother's.  Tell him so and
+come.  I am waiting for you."
+
+I stifled a groan, and let my arms fall limply to my sides.  I was a
+weakling and contemptible.  I realized it.  And yet to-day when I look back
+I see how vast a strength I should have needed.  I was but thirteen and of
+a spirit that had been cowed by her, and was held under her thrall.
+
+I...I am sorry, Falcone," I faltered, and there were tears in my eyes.
+
+I shrugged again--shrugged in token of my despair and grief and impotence--
+and I moved down the long room towards the door where my mother waited.
+
+I did not dare to bestow another look upon that poor broken old warrior,
+that faithful, lifelong servant, turned thus cruelly upon the world by a
+woman whom bigotry had sapped of all human feelings and a boy who was a
+coward masquerading under a great name.
+
+I heard his gasping sob, and the sound smote upon my heart and hurt me as
+if it had been iron.  I had failed him.  He must suffer more in the
+knowledge of my unworthiness to be called the son of that master whom he
+had worshipped than in the destitution that might await him.
+
+I reached the door.
+
+"My lord! My lord!" he cried after me despairingly.  On the very threshold
+I stood arrested by that heartbroken cry of his.  I half turned.
+
+"Falcone..." I began.
+
+And then my mother's white hand fell upon my wrist.
+
+"Come, my son," she said, once more impassive.
+
+Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I passed out I heard Falcone's voice
+crying:
+
+"My lord, my lord!  God help me, and God help you!"  An hour later he had
+left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden ducats
+which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy grooms or
+serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse had old
+Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE PIETISTIC THRALL
+
+
+That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her
+ever to have done before.
+
+It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me
+notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber.  It may be
+that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment in
+the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to obey
+her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny ere it
+should spread and become too big for her.
+
+We sat in the room that was called her private dining�room, but which, in
+fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
+
+The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my
+father's day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings,
+their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the
+looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved
+movables, had been shut up these many years.
+
+For my mother's claustral needs sufficient was provided by the alcove in
+which she slept, the private chapel of the citadel in which she would spend
+long hours, and this private dining-room where we now sat.  Into the
+spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into our town of
+Mondolfo never.  Not since my father's departure upon his ill-starred
+rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge.
+
+"Tell me whom you go with, and I will tell you what you are," says the
+proverb.  "Show me your dwelling, and I shall see your character," say I.
+
+And surely never was there a chamber so permeated by the nature of its
+tenant as that private dining-room of my mother's.
+
+It was a narrow room in the shape of a small parallelogram, with the
+windows set high up near the timbered, whitewashed ceiling, so that it was
+impossible either to look in or to look out, as is sometimes the case with
+the windows of a chapel.
+
+On the white space of wall that faced the door hung a great wooden
+Crucifix, very rudely carved by one who either knew nothing of anatomy, or
+else--as is more probable--was utterly unable to set down his knowledge
+upon timber.  The crudely tinted figure would be perhaps half the natural
+size of a man; and it was the most repulsive and hideous representation of
+the Tragedy of Golgotha that I have ever seen.  It filled one with a horror
+which was far indeed removed from the pious horror which that Symbol is
+intended to arouse in every true believer.  It emphasized all the ghastly
+ugliness of death upon that most barbarous of gallows, without any
+suggestion of the beauty and immensity of the Divine Martyrdom of Him Who
+in the likeness of the sinful flesh was Alone without sin.
+
+And to me the ghastliest and most pitiful thing of all was an artifice
+which its maker had introduced for the purpose of conveying some suggestion
+of the supernatural to that mangled, malformed, less than human
+representation.  Into the place of the wound made by the spear of Longinus,
+he had introduced a strip of crystal which caught the light at certain
+angles--more particularly when there were lighted tapers in the room--so
+that in reflecting this it seemed to shed forth luminous rays.
+
+An odd thing was that my mother--who looked upon that Crucifix with eyes
+that were very different from mine--would be at pains in the evening when
+lights were fetched to set a taper at such an angle as was best calculated
+to produce the effect upon which the sculptor had counted.  What
+satisfaction it can have been to her to see reflected from that glazed
+wound the light which she herself had provided for the purpose, I am lost
+to think.  And yet I am assured that she would contemplate that shining
+effluence in a sort of ecstatic awe, accounting it something very near akin
+to miracle.
+
+Under this Crucifix hung a little alabaster font of holy�water, into the
+back of which was stuck a withered, yellow branch of palm, which was
+renewed on each Palm Sunday.  Before it was set a praying-stool of plain
+oak, without any cushion to mitigate its harshness to the knees.
+
+In the corner of the room stood a tall, spare, square cupboard, capacious
+but very plain, in which the necessaries of the table were disposed.  In
+the opposite corner there was another smaller cupboard with a sort of
+writing�pulpit beneath.  Here my mother kept the accounts of her household,
+her books of recipes, her homely medicines and the heavy devotional tomes
+and lesser volumes--mostly manuscript--out of which she nourished her poor
+starving soul.
+
+Amongst these was the Treatise of the Mental Sufferings of Christ--the book
+of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who founded the
+convent of Poor Clares in that city--a book whose almost blasphemous
+presumption fired the train of my earliest misgivings.
+
+Another was The Spiritual Combat, that queer yet able book of the cleric
+Scupoli--described as the "aureo libro," dedicated "Al Supremo Capitano e
+Gloriosissimo Trionfatore, Gesu Cristo, Figliuolo di Maria," and this
+dedication in the form of a letter to Our Saviour, signed, "Your most
+humble servant, purchased with Your Blood."1
+
+1 This work, which achieved a great vogue and of which several editions
+were issued down to 1750, was first printed in 1589.  Clearly, however, MS.
+copies were in existence earlier, and it is to one of these that Agostino
+here refers.
+
+
+Down the middle of the chamber ran a long square�ended table of oak, very
+plain like all the rest of the room's scant furnishings.  At the head of
+this table was an arm-chair for my mother, of bare wood without any cushion
+to relieve its hardness, whilst on either side of the board stood a few
+lesser chairs for those who habitually dined there.  These were, besides
+myself, Fra Gervasio, my tutor; Messer Giorgio, the castellan, a
+bald-headed old man long since past the fighting age and who in times of
+stress would have been as useful for purposes of defending Mondolfo as
+Lorenza, my mother's elderly woman, who sat below him at the board; he was
+toothless, bowed, and decrepit, but he was very devout--as he had need to
+be, seeing that he was half dead already--and this counted with my mother
+above any other virtue.2
+
+2 Virtu is the word used by Agostino, and it is susceptible to a wider
+translation than that which the English language affords, comprising as it
+does a sense of courage and address at arms.  Indeed, it is not clear that
+Agostino is not playing here upon the double meaning of the word.
+
+
+The last of the four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the seneschal,
+a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom the only
+joyous thing was his misnomer of a name.
+
+Of the table that we kept, beyond noting that the fare was ever of a lenten
+kind and that the wine was watered, I will but mention that my mother did
+not observe the barrier of the salt.  There was no sitting above it or
+below at our board, as, from time immemorial, is the universal custom in
+feudal homes.  That her having abolished it was an act of humility on her
+part there can be little doubt, although this was a subject upon which she
+never expressed herself in my hearing.
+
+The walls of that room were whitewashed and bare.
+
+The floor was of stone overlain by a carpet of rushes that was changed no
+oftener than once a week.
+
+From what I have told you, you may picture something of the chill gloom of
+the place, something of the pietism which hung upon the very air of that
+apartment in which so much of my early youth was spent.  And it had, too,
+an odour that is peculiarly full of character, the smell which is never
+absent from a sacristy and rarely from conventual chambers; a smell
+difficult to define, faint and yet tenuously pungent, and like no other
+smell in all the world that I have ever known.  It is a musty odour, an
+odour of staleness which perhaps an open window and the fresh air of heaven
+might relieve but could not dissipate; and to this is wed, but so subtly
+that it would be impossible to say which is predominant, the slight, sickly
+aroma of wax.
+
+We supped there that night in silence at about the hour that poor Gino
+Falcone would be taking his departure.  Silence was habitual with us at
+meal-times, eating being performed--like everything else in that drab
+household--as a sort of devotional act.  Occasionally the silence would be
+relieved by readings aloud from some pious work, undertaken at my mother's
+bidding by one or another of the amanuenses.
+
+But on the night in question there was just silence, broken chiefly by the
+toothless slobber of the castellan over the soft meats that were especially
+prepared for him.  And there was something of grimness in that silence; for
+none--and Fra Gervasio less than any--approved the unchristian thing that
+out of excess of Christianity my mother had done in driving old Falcone
+forth.
+
+Myself, I could not eat at all.  My misery choked me.  The thought of that
+old servitor whom I had loved being sent a wanderer and destitute, and all
+through my own weakness, all because I had failed him in his need, just as
+I had failed myself, was anguish to me.  My lip would quiver at the
+thought, and it was with difficulty that I repressed my tears.
+
+At last that hideous repast came to an end in prayers of thanksgiving whose
+immoderate length was out of all proportion to the fare provided.
+
+The castellan shuffled forth upon the arm of the seneschal; Lorenza
+followed at a sign from my mother, and we three--Gervasio, my mother, and
+I--were left alone.
+
+And here let me say a word of Fra Gervasio.  He was, as I have already
+written, my father's foster-brother.  That is to say, he was the child of a
+sturdy peasant-woman of the Val di Taro, from whose lusty, healthy breast
+my father had suckled the first of that fine strength that had been his
+own.
+
+He was older than my father by a month or so, and as often happens in such
+cases, he was brought to Mondolfo to be first my father's playmate, and
+later, no doubt, to have followed him as a man-at-arms.  But a chill that
+he took in his tenth year as a result of a long winter immersion in the icy
+waters of the Taro laid him at the point of death, and left him thereafter
+of a rather weak and sickly nature.  But he was quick and intelligent, and
+was admitted to learn his letters with my father, whence it ensued that he
+developed a taste for study.  Seeing that by his health he was debarred
+from the hardy open life of a soldier, his scholarly aptitude was
+encouraged, and it was decided that he should follow a clerical career.
+
+He had entered the order of St. Francis; but after some years at the
+Convent of Aguilona, his health having been indifferent and the conventual
+rules too rigorous for his condition, he was given licence to become the
+chaplain of Mondolfo.  Here he had received the kindliest treatment at the
+hands of my father, who entertained for his sometime playmate a very real
+affection.
+
+He was a tall, gaunt man with a sweet, kindly face, reflecting his sweet,
+kindly nature; he had deep-set, dark eyes, very gentle in their gaze, a
+tender mouth that was a little drawn by lines of suffering and an upright
+wrinkle, deep as a gash, between his brows at the root of his long, slender
+nose.
+
+He it was that night who broke the silence that endured even after the
+others had departed.  He spoke at first as if communing with himself, like
+a man who thinks aloud; and between his thumb and his long forefinger, I
+remember that he kneaded a crumb of bread upon which his eyes were intent.
+
+"Gino Falcone is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant.  He
+would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift, to
+die to no purpose.  Ah, well."  He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent,
+whilst I--the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my thoughts
+thus expressed--fell soundlessly to weeping.
+
+"Do you reprove me, Fra Gervasio?" quoth my mother, quite emotionless.
+
+The monk pushed back his stool and rose ere he replied.  "I must," he said,
+"or I am unworthy of the scapulary I wear.  I must reprove this unchristian
+act, or else am I no true servant of my Master."
+
+She crossed herself with her thumb-nail upon the brow and upon the lips, to
+repress all evil thoughts and evil words--an unfailing sign that she was
+stirred to anger and sought to combat the sin of it.  Then she spoke,
+meekly enough, in the same cold, level voice.
+
+"I think it is you who are at fault," she told him, "when you call
+unchristian an act which was necessary to secure this child to Christ."
+
+He smiled a sad little smile.  "Yet even so, it were well you should
+proceed with caution and with authority; and in this you have none."
+
+It was her turn to smile, the palest, ghostliest of smiles, and even for so
+much she must have been oddly moved.  "I think I have," said she, and
+quoted, "'If thy right hand offend thee, hack it off.'"
+
+I saw a hot flush mount to the friar's prominent cheek�bones.  Indeed, he
+was a very human man under his conventual robe, with swift stirrings of
+passion which the long habit of repression had not yet succeeded in
+extinguishing.  He cast his eyes to the ceiling in such a glance of despair
+as left me thoughtful.  It was as an invocation to Heaven to look down upon
+the obstinate, ignorant folly of this woman who accounted herself wise and
+who so garbled the Divine teaching as to blaspheme with complacency.
+
+I know that now; at the time I was not quite so clear�sighted as to read
+the full message of that glance.
+
+Her audacity was as the audacity of fools.  Where wisdom, full-fledged,
+might have halted, trembling, she swept resolutely onward.  Before her
+stood this friar, this teacher and interpreter, this man of holy life who
+was accounted profoundly learned in the Divinities; and he told her that
+she had done an evil thing.  Yet out of the tiny pittance of her knowledge
+and her little intellectual sight--which was no better than a blindness--
+must she confidently tell him that he was at fault.
+
+Argument was impossible between him and her.  Thus much I saw, and I feared
+an explosion of the wrath of which I perceived in him the signs.  But he
+quelled it.  Yet his voice rumbled thunderously upon his next words.
+
+"It matters something that Gino Falcone should not starve," he said.
+
+"It matters more that my son should not be damned," she answered him, and
+with that answer left him weapon-less, for against the armour of a
+crassness so dense and one-ideaed there are no weapons that can prevail.
+
+"Listen," she said, and her eyes, raised for a moment, comprehended both of
+us in their glance.  "There is something that it were best I tell you, that
+once for all you may fathom the depth of my purpose for Agostino here.  My
+lord his father was a man of blood and strife..."
+
+"And so were many whose names stand to-day upon the roll of saints and are
+its glory," answered the friar with quick asperity.
+
+"But they did not raise their arms against the Holy Church and against
+Christ's Own most holy Vicar, as did he," she reminded him sorrowfully.
+"The sword is an ill thing save when it is wielded in a holy cause.  In my
+lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing
+accursed.  But God's anger overtook him and laid him low at Perugia in all
+the strength and vigour that had made him arrogant as Lucifer.  It was
+perhaps well for all of us that it so befell."
+
+"Madonna!" cried Gervasio in stern horror.
+
+But she went on quite heedless of him.  "Best of all was it for me, since I
+was spared the harshest duty that can be imposed upon a woman and a wife.
+It was necessary that he should expiate the evil he had wrought; moreover,
+his life was become a menace to my child's salvation.  It was his wish to
+make of Agostino such another as himself, to lead his only son adown the
+path of Hell.  It was my duty to my God and to my son to shield this boy.
+And to accomplish that I would have delivered up his father to the papal
+emissaries who sought him."
+
+"Ah, never that!" the friar protested.  "You could never have done that!"
+
+"Could I not?  I tell you it was as good as done.  I tell you that the
+thing was planned.  I took counsel with my confessor, and he showed me my
+plain duty."
+
+She paused a moment, whilst we stared, Fra Gervasio white-faced and with
+mouth that gaped in sheer horror.
+
+"For years had he eluded the long arm of the pope's justice," she resumed.
+"And during those years he had never ceased to plot and plan the overthrow
+of the Pontifical dominion.  He was blinded by his arrogance to think that
+he could stand against the hosts of Heaven.  His stubbornness in sin had
+made him mad.  Quem Deus vult perdere..."  And she waved one of her
+emaciated hands, leaving the quotation unfinished.  "Heaven showed me the
+way, chose me for Its instrument.  I sent him word, offering him shelter
+here at Mondolfo where none would look to find him, assuming it to be the
+last place to which he would adventure.  He was to have come when death
+took him on the field of Perugia."
+
+There was something here that I did not understand at all.  And in like
+case, it seemed, was Fra Gervasio, for he passed a hand over his brow, as
+if to clear thence some veils that clogged his understanding.
+
+"He was to have come?" he echoed.  "To shelter?" he asked.
+
+"Nay," said she quietly, "to death.  The papal emissaries had knowledge of
+it and would have been here to await him."
+
+"You would have betrayed him?"  Fra Gervasio's voice was hoarse, his eyes
+were burning sombrely.
+
+"I would have saved my son," said she, with quiet satisfaction, in a tone
+that revealed how incontestably right she conceived herself to be.
+
+He stood there, and he seemed taller and more gaunt than usual, for he had
+drawn himself erect to the full of his great height--and he was a man who
+usually went bowed.  His hands were clenched and the knuckles showed
+blue-white like marble.  His face was very pale and in his temple a little
+pulse was throbbing visibly.  He swayed slightly upon his feet, and the
+sight of him frightened me a little.  He seemed so full of terrible
+potentialities.
+
+When I think of vengeance, I picture to myself Fra Gervasio as I beheld him
+in that hour.  Nothing that he could have done would have surprised me.
+Had he fallen upon my mother then, and torn her limb from limb, it would
+have been no more than from the sight of him I might have expected.
+
+I have said that nothing that he could have done would have surprised me.
+Rather should I have said that nothing would have surprised me save the
+thing he did.
+
+Whilst a man might have counted ten stood he so--she seeing nothing of the
+strange transfiguration that had come over him, for her eyes were downcast
+as ever.  Then quite slowly, his hands unclenched, his arms fell limply to
+his sides, his head sank forward upon his breast, and his figure bowed
+itself lower than was usual.  Quite suddenly, quite softly, almost as a man
+who swoons, he sank down again into the chair from which he had risen.
+
+He set his elbows on the table, and took his head in his hands.  A groan
+escaped him.  She heard it, and looked at him in her furtive way.
+
+"You are moved by this knowledge, Fra Gervasio," she said and sighed.  "I
+have told you this--and you, Agostino--that you may know how deep, how
+ineradicable is my purpose.  You were a votive offering, Agostino; you were
+vowed to the service of God that your father's life might be spared, years
+ago, ere you were born.  From the very edge of death was your father
+brought back to life and strength.  He would have used that life and that
+strength to cheat God of the price of His boon to me."
+
+"And if," Fra Gervasio questioned almost fiercely, "Agostino in the end
+should have no vocation, should have no call to such a life?"
+
+She looked at him very wistfully, almost pityingly.  "How should that be?"
+she asked.  "He was offered to God.  And that God accepted the gift, He
+showed when He gave Giovanni back to life.  How, then, could it come to
+pass that Agostino should have no call?  Would God reject that which He had
+accepted?"
+
+Fra Gervasio rose again.  "You go too deep for me, Madonna," he said
+bitterly.  "It is not for me to speak of my gifts save reverently and in
+profound and humble gratitude for that grace by which God bestowed them
+upon me.  But I am accounted something of a casuist.  I am a doctor of
+theology and of canon law, and but for the weak state of my health I should
+be sitting to-day in the chair of canon law at the University of Pavia.
+And yet, Madonna, the things you tell me with such assurance make a mock of
+everything I have ever learnt."
+
+Even I, lad as I was, perceived the bitter irony in which he spoke.  Not so
+she.  I vow she flushed under what she accounted his praise of her wisdom
+and divine revelation; for vanity is the last human weakness to be
+discarded.  Then she seemed to recollect herself.  She bowed her head very
+reverently.
+
+"It is God's grace that reveals to me the truth," she said.
+
+He fell back a step in his amazement at having been so thoroughly
+misunderstood.  Then he drew away from the table.  He looked at her as he
+would speak, but checked on the thought.  He turned, and so, without
+another word, departed, and left us sitting there together.
+
+It was then that we had our talk; or, rather, that she talked, whilst I sat
+listening.  And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more under
+the spell of which I had more than once that day been on the point of
+casting off the yoke.
+
+For, after all, you are to discern in what I have written here, between
+what were my feelings at the time and what are my criticisms of to-day in
+the light of the riper knowledge to which I have come.  The handling of a
+sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown.  Yet was I ready to
+believe that such a thrill was but a lure of Satan's, as my mother assured
+me.  In deeper matters she might harbour error, as Fra Gervasio's irony had
+shown me that he believed.  But we went that night into no great depths.
+
+She spent an hour or so in vague discourse upon the joys of Paradise, in
+showing me the folly of jeopardizing them for the sake of the fleeting
+vanities of this ephemeral world.  She dealt at length upon the love of God
+for us, and the love which we should bear to Him, and she read to me
+passages from the book of the Blessed Varano and from Scupoli to add point
+to her teachings upon the beauty and nobility of a life that is devoted to
+God's service--the only service of this world in which nobility can exist.
+
+And then she added little stories of martyrs who had suffered for the
+faith, of the tortures to which they had been subjected, and of the
+happiness they had felt in actual suffering, of the joy that their very
+torments had brought them, borne up as they were by their faith and the
+strength of their love of God.
+
+There was in all this nothing that was new to me, nothing that I did not
+freely accept and implicitly believe without pausing to judge or criticize.
+And yet, it was shrewd of her to have plied me then as she did; for
+thereby, beyond doubt, she checked me upon the point of self-questioning to
+which that day's happenings were urging me, and she brought me once more
+obediently to heel and caused me to fix my eyes more firmly than ever
+beyond the things of this world and upon the glories of the next which I
+was to make my goal and aim.
+
+Thus came I back within the toils from which I had been for a moment
+tempted to escape; and what is more, my imagination fired to some touch of
+ecstasy by those tales of sainted martyrs, I returned willingly to the
+pietistic thrall, to be held in it more firmly than ever yet before.
+
+We parted as we always parted, and when I had kissed her cold hand I went
+my way to bed.  And if I knelt that night to pray that God might watch over
+poor errant Falcone, it was to the end that Falcone might be brought to see
+the sin and error of his ways and win to the grace of a happy death when
+his hour came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LUISINA
+
+
+Of the four years that followed little mention need be made in these pages,
+save for one incident whose importance is derived entirely from that which
+subsequently befell, for at the time it had no meaning for me.  Yet since
+later it was to have much, it is fitting that it should be recorded here.
+
+It happened that a month or so after old Falcone had left us there wandered
+one noontide into the outer courtyard of the castle two pilgrim fathers, on
+their way--as they announced--from Milan to visit the Holy House at Loreto.
+
+It was my mother's custom to receive all pilgrim wayfarers and beggars in
+this courtyard at noontide twice in each week to bestow upon them food and
+alms.  Rarely was she, herself, present at that alms-giving; more rarely
+still was I.  It was Fra Gervasio who discharged the office of almoner on
+the Countess of Mondolfo's behalf.  Occasionally the whines and snarls of
+the motley crowd that gathered there--for they were not infrequently
+quarrelsome--reached us in the maschio tower where we had our apartments.
+But on the day of which I speak I chanced to stand in the pillared gallery
+above the courtyard, watching the heaving, surging human mass below, for
+the concourse was greater than usual.
+
+Cripples there were of every sort, and all in rags; some with twisted,
+withered limbs, others with mere stumps where limbs had been lopped off,
+others again-- and there were many of these--with hideous running sores,
+some of which no doubt would be counterfeit--as I now know--and contrived
+with poultices of salt for the purpose of exciting charity in the piteous.
+All were dishevelled, unkempt, ragged, dirty, and, doubtless, verminous.
+Most were greedy and wolfish as they thrust one another aside to reach Fra
+Gervasio, as if they feared that the supply of alms and food should be
+exhausted ere their turn arrived.  Amongst them there was commonly a small
+sprinkling of mendicant friars, some of these, perhaps, just the hypocrite
+rogues that I have since discovered many of them to be, though at the time
+all who wore the scapulary were holy men in my innocent eyes.  They were
+mostly, or so they pretended, bent upon pilgrimages to distant parts,
+living upon such alms as they could gather on their way.
+
+On the steps of the chapel Fra Gervasio would stand--gaunt and impassive--
+with his posse of attendant grooms behind him.  One of the latter, standing
+nearest to our almoner, held a great sack of broken bread; another
+presented a wooden, trough-like platter filled with slices of meat, and a
+third dispensed out of horn cups a poor, thin, and rather sour, but very
+wholesome wine, which he drew from the skins that were his charge.
+
+From one to the other were the beggars passed on by Fra Gervasio, and
+lastly came they back to him, to receive from his hands a piece of money--a
+grosso, of which he held the bag himself.
+
+On the day of which I write, as I stood there gazing down upon that mass of
+misery, marvelling perhaps a little upon the inequality of fortune, and
+wondering vaguely what God could be about to inflict so much suffering upon
+certain of His creatures, to cause one to be born into purple and another
+into rags, my eyes were drawn by the insistent stare of two monks who stood
+at the back of the crowd with their shoulders to the wall.
+
+They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their
+tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the
+ample sleeves of their brown habits.  One of this twain was broader than
+his companion and very erect of carriage, such as was unusual in a monk.
+His mouth and the half of his face were covered by a thick brown beard, and
+athwart his countenance, from under the left eye across his nose and cheek,
+ran a great livid scar to lose itself in the beard towards the right jaw.
+His deep-set eyes regarded me so intently that I coloured uncomfortably
+under their gaze; for accustomed as I was to seclusion, I was easily
+abashed.  I turned away and went slowly along the gallery to the end; and
+yet I had a feeling that those eyes were following me, and, indeed, casting
+a swift glance over my shoulder ere I went indoors, I saw that this was so.
+
+That evening at supper I chanced to mention the matter to Fra Gervasio.
+
+"There was a big bearded capuchin in the yard at alms-time to-day--" I was
+beginning, when the friar's knife clattered from his hand, and he looked at
+me with eyes of positive fear out of a face from which the last drop of
+blood had abruptly receded.  I checked my inquiry at the sight of him thus
+suddenly disordered, whilst my mother, who, as usual, observed nothing,
+made a foolish comment.
+
+"The little brothers are never absent, Agostino."
+
+"This brother was a big brother," said I.
+
+"It is not seemly to make jest of holy men," she reproved me in her
+chilling voice.
+
+"I had no thought to jest," I answered soberly.  "I should never have
+remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an intentness--
+so great that I was unable to bear it."
+
+It was her turn to betray emotion.  She looked at me full and long--for
+once--and very searchingly.  She, too, had grown paler than was her habit.
+
+"Agostino, what do you tell me?" quoth she, and her voice quivered.
+
+Now here was a deal of pother about a capuchin who had stared at the
+Madonnino of Anguissola!  The matter was out of all proportion to the stir
+it made, and I conveyed in my next words some notion of that opinion.
+
+But she stared wistfully.  "Never think it, Agostino," she besought me.
+"You know not what it may import."  And then she turned to Fra Gervasio.
+"Who was this mendicant?" she asked.
+
+He had by now recovered from his erstwhile confusion.  But he was still
+pale, and I observed that his hand trembled.
+
+"He must have been one of the two little brothers of St. Francis on their
+way, they said, from Milan to Loreto on a pilgrimage."
+
+"Not those you told me are resting here until to�morrow?"
+
+From his face I saw that he would have denied it had it lain within his
+power to utter a deliberate falsehood.
+
+"They are the same," he answered in a low voice.
+
+She rose.  "I must see this friar," she announced, and never in all my life
+had I beheld in her such a display of emotion.
+
+"In the morning, then," said Fra Gervasio.  "It is after sunset," he
+explained.  "They have retired, and their rule..."  He left the sentence
+unfinished, but he had said enough to be understood by her.
+
+She sank back to her chair, folded her hands in her lap and fell into
+meditation.  The faintest of flushes crept into her wax-like cheeks.
+
+"If it should be a sign!" she murmured raptly, and then she turned again to
+Fra Gervasio.  "You heard Agostino say that he could not bear this friar's
+gaze.  You remember, brother, how a pilgrim appeared near San Rufino to the
+nurse of Saint Francis, and took from her arms the child that he might
+bless it ere once more he vanished?  If this should be a sign such as
+that!"
+
+She clasped her hands together fervently.  "I must see this friar ere he
+departs again," she said to the staring, dumbfounded Fra Gervasio.
+
+At last, then, I understood her emotion.  All her life she had prayed for a
+sign of grace for herself or for me, and she believed that here at last was
+something that might well be discovered upon inquiry to be an answer to her
+prayer.  This capuchin who had stared at me from the courtyard became at
+once to her mind--so ill-balanced upon such matters--a supernatural
+visitant, harbinger, as it were, of my future saintly glory.
+
+But though she rose betimes upon the morrow, to see the holy man ere he
+fared forth again, she was not early enough.  In the courtyard whither she
+descended to make her way to the outhouse where the two were lodged, she
+met Fra Gervasio, who was astir before her.
+
+"The friar?" she cried anxiously, filled already with forebodings.  "The
+holy man?"
+
+Gervasio stood before her, pale and trembling.  "You are too late, Madonna.
+Already he is gone."
+
+She observed his agitation now, and beheld in it a reflection of her own,
+springing from the selfsame causes.  "Oh, it was a sign indeed!" she
+exclaimed.  "And you have come to realize it, too, I see."  Next, in a
+burst of gratitude that was almost pitiful upon such slight foundation,
+"Oh, blessed Agostino!" she cried out.
+
+Then the momentary exaltation fell from that woman of sorrows.  "This but
+makes my burden heavier, my responsibility greater," she wailed.  "God help
+me bear it!"
+
+Thus passed that incident so trifling in itself and so misunderstood by
+her.  But it was never forgotten, and from time to time she would allude to
+it as the sign which had been vouchsafed me and for which great should be
+my thankfulness and my joy.
+
+Save for that, in the four years that followed, time flowed an uneventful
+course within the four walls of the big citadel--for beyond those four
+walls I was never once permitted to set foot; and although from time to
+time I heard rumours of doings in the town itself, of the affairs of the
+State whereof I was by right of birth the tyrant, and of the greater
+business of the big world beyond, yet so trained and schooled was I that I
+had no great desire for a nearer acquaintance with that world.
+
+A certain curiosity did at times beset me, spurred not so much by the
+little that I heard as by things that I read in such histories as my
+studies demanded I should read.  For even the lives of saints, and Holy
+Writ itself, afford their student glimpses of the world.  But this
+curiosity I came to look upon as a lure of the flesh, and to resist.
+Blessed are they who are out of all contact with the world, since to them
+salvation comes more easily; so I believed implicitly, as I was taught by
+my mother and by Fra Gervasio at my mother's bidding.
+
+And as the years passed under such influences as had been at work upon me
+from the cradle, influences which had known no check save that brief one
+afforded by Gino Falcone, I became perforce devout and pious from very
+inclination.
+
+Joyous transports were afforded me by the study of the life of that Saint
+Luigi of the noble Mantuan House of Gonzaga--in whom I saw an ideal to be
+emulated, since he seemed to me to be much in my own case and of my own
+estate--who had counted the illusory greatness of this world well lost so
+that he might win the bliss of Paradise.  Similarly did I take delight in
+the Life, written by Tommaso da Celano, of that blessed son of Pietro
+Bernardone, the merchant of Assisi, that Francis who became the Troubadour
+of the Lord and sang so sweetly the praises of His Creation.  My heart
+would swell within me and I would weep hot and very bitter tears over the
+narrative of the early and sinful part of his life, as we may weep to see a
+beloved brother beset by deadly perils.  And greater, hence, was the joy,
+the exultation, and finally the sweet peace and comfort that I gathered
+from the tale of his conversion, of his wondrous works, and of the Three
+Companions.
+
+In these pages--so lively was my young imagination and so wrought upon by
+what I read--I suffered with him again his agonies of hope, I thrilled with
+some of the joy of his stupendous ecstasies, and I almost envied him the
+signal mark of Heavenly grace that had imprinted the stigmata upon his
+living body.
+
+All that concerned him, too, I read: his Little Flowers, his Testament, The
+Mirror of Perfection; but my greatest delight was derived from his Song of
+the Creatures, which I learnt by heart.
+
+Oftentimes since have I wondered and sought to determine whether it was the
+piety of those lauds that charmed me spiritually, or an appeal to my senses
+made by the beauty of the lines and the imagery which the Assisian used in
+his writings.
+
+Similarly I am at a loss to determine whether the pleasure I took in
+reading of the joyous, perfumed life of that other stigmatized saint, the
+blessed Catherine of Siena, was not a sensuous pleasure rather than the
+soul-ecstasy I supposed it at the time.
+
+And as I wept over the early sins of St. Francis, so too did I weep over
+the rhapsodical Confessions of St. Augustine, that mighty theologian after
+whom I had been named, and whose works--after those concerning St.
+Francis--exerted a great influence upon me in those early days.
+
+Thus did I grow in grace until Fra Gervasio, who watched me narrowly and
+anxiously, seemed more at ease, setting aside the doubts that earlier had
+tormented him lest I should be forced upon a life for which I had no
+vocation.  He grew more tender and loving towards me, as if something of
+pity lurked within the strong affection in which he held me.
+
+And, meanwhile, as I grew in grace of spirit, so too did I grow in grace of
+body, waxing tall and very strong, which would have been nowise surprising
+but that those nurtured as was I are seldom lusty.  The mind feeding
+overmuch upon the growing body is apt to sap its strength and vigour,
+besides which there was the circumstance that I continued throughout those
+years a life almost of confinement, deprived of all the exercises by which
+youth is brought to its fine flower of strength.
+
+As I was approaching my eighteenth year there befell another incident,
+which, trivial in itself, yet has its place in my development and so should
+have its place within these confessions.  Nor did I judge it trivial at the
+time--nor were trivial the things that followed out of it--trivial though
+it may seem to me to-day as I look back upon it through all the murk of
+later life.
+
+Giojoso, the seneschal, of whom I have spoken, had a son, a great raw-boned
+lad whom he would have trained as an amanuensis, but who was one of
+Nature's dunces out of which there is nothing useful to be made.  He was
+strong-limbed, however, and he was given odd menial duties to perform about
+the castle.  But these he shirked where possible, as he had shirked his
+lessons in earlier days.
+
+Now it happened that I was walking one spring morning--it was in May of
+that year '44 of which I am now writing--on the upper of the three spacious
+terraces that formed the castle garden.  It was but an indifferently tended
+place, and yet perhaps the more agreeable on that account, since Nature had
+been allowed to have her prodigal, luxuriant way.  It is true that the
+great boxwood hedges needed trimming, and that weeds were sprouting between
+the stones of the flights of steps that led from terrace to terrace; but
+the place was gay and fragrant with wild blossoms, and the great trees
+afforded generous shade, and the long rank grass beneath them made a
+pleasant couch to lie on during the heat of the day in summer.  The lowest
+terrace of all was in better case.  It was a well-planted and well-tended
+orchard, where I got many a colic in my earlier days from a gluttony of
+figs and peaches whose complete ripening I was too impatient to await.
+
+I walked there, then, one morning quite early on the upper terrace
+immediately under the castle wall, and alternately I read from the De
+Civitate Dei which I had brought with me, alternately mused upon the matter
+of my reading.  Suddenly I was disturbed by a sound of voices just below
+me.
+
+The boxwood hedge, being twice my height and fully two feet thick, entirely
+screened the speakers from my sight.
+
+There were two voices, and one of these, angry and threatening, I
+recognized for that of Rinolfo--Messer Giojoso's graceless son; the other,
+a fresh young feminine voice, was entirely unknown to me; indeed it was the
+first girl's voice I could recall having heard in all my eighteen years,
+and the sound was as pleasantly strange as it was strangely pleasant.
+
+I stood quite still, to listen to its expostulations.
+
+"You are a cruel fellow, Ser Rinolfo, and Madonna the Countess shall be
+told of this."
+
+There followed a crackling of twigs and a rush of heavy feet.
+
+"You shall have something else of which to tell Madonna's beatitude,"
+threatened the harsh voice of Rinolfo.
+
+That and his advances were answered by a frightened screech, a screech that
+moved rapidly to the right as it was emitted.  There came more snapping of
+twigs, a light scurrying sound followed by a heavier one, and lastly a
+panting of breath and a soft pattering of running feet upon the steps that
+led up to the terrace where I walked.
+
+I moved forward rapidly to the opening in the hedge where these steps
+debouched, and no sooner had I appeared there than a soft, lithe body
+hurtled against me so suddenly that my arms mechanically went round it, my
+right hand still holding the De Civitate Dei, forefinger enclosed within
+its pages to mark the place.
+
+Two moist dark eyes looked up appealingly into mine out of a frightened but
+very winsome, sun-tinted face.
+
+"0 Madonnino!" she panted.  "Protect me!  Save me!"
+
+Below us, checked midway in his furious ascent, halted Rinolfo, his big
+face red with anger, scowling up at me in sudden doubt and resentment.
+
+The situation was not only extraordinary in itself, but singularly
+disturbing to me.  Who the girl was, or whence she came, I had no thought
+or notion as I surveyed her.  She would be of about my own age, or perhaps
+a little younger, and from her garb it was plain that she belonged to the
+peasant class.  She wore a spotless bodice of white linen, which but
+indifferently concealed the ripening swell of her young breast.  Her
+petticoat, of dark red homespun, stopped short above her bare brown ankles,
+and her little feet were naked.  Her brown hair, long and abundant, was
+still fastened at the nape of her slim neck, but fell loose beyond that,
+having been disturbed, no doubt, in her scuffle with Rinolfo.  Her little
+mouth was deeply red and it held strong young teeth that were as white as
+milk.
+
+I have since wondered whether she was as beautiful as I deemed her in that
+moment.  For it must be remembered that mine was the case of the son of
+Filippo Balducci--related by Messer Boccaccio in the merry tales of his
+Decamerone1--who had come to years of adolescence without ever having
+beheld womanhood, so that the first sight of it in the streets of Florence
+affected him so oddly that he vexed his sire with foolish questions and
+still more foolish prayers.
+
+1  In the Introduction to the Fourth Day.
+
+
+So was it now with me.  In all my eighteen years I had by my mother's
+careful contriving never set eyes upon a woman of an age inferior to her
+own.  And--consider me foolish if you will but so it is--I do not think
+that it had occurred to me that they existed, or else, if they did, that in
+youth they differed materially from what in age I found them.  Thus I had
+come to look upon women as just feeble, timid creatures, over-prone to
+gossip, tears, and lamentations, and good for very little that I could
+perceive.
+
+I had been unable to understand for what reason it was that San Luigi of
+Gonzaga had from years of discretion never allowed his eyes to rest upon a
+woman; nor could I see wherein lay the special merit attributed to this.
+And certain passages in the Confessions of St. Augustine and in the early
+life of St. Francis of Assisi bewildered me and left me puzzled.
+
+But now, quite suddenly, it was as if revelation had come to me.  It was as
+if the Book of Life had at last been opened for me, and at a glance I had
+read one of its dazzling pages.  So that whether this brown peasant girl
+was beautiful or not, beautiful she seemed to me with the radiant beauty
+that is attributed to the angels of Paradise.  Nor did I doubt that she
+would be as holy, for to see in beauty a mark of divine favour is not
+peculiar only to the ancient Greeks.
+
+And because of the appeal of this beauty--real or supposed--I was very
+ready with my protection, since I felt that protection must carry with it
+certain rights of ownership which must be very sweet and were certainly
+desired.
+
+Holding her, therefore, within the shelter of my arms, where in her
+heedless innocence she had flung herself, and by very instinct stroking
+with one hand her little brown head to soothe her fears, I became truculent
+for the first time in my new-found manhood, and boldly challenged her
+pursuer.
+
+"What is this, Rinolfo?" I demanded.  "Why do you plague her?"
+
+"She broke up my snares," he answered sullenly, and let the birds go free."
+
+"What snares?  What birds?" quoth I.
+
+"He is a cruel beast," she shrilled.  "And he will lie to you, Madonnino."
+
+"If he does I'll break the bones of his body," I promised in a tone
+entirely new to me.  And then to him--"The truth now, poltroon!" I
+admonished him.
+
+At last I got the story out of them: how Rinolfo had scattered grain in a
+little clearing in the garden, and all about it had set twigs that were
+heavily smeared with viscum; that he set this trap almost daily, and daily
+took a great number of birds whose necks he wrung and had them cooked for
+him with rice by his silly mother; that it was a sin in any case to take
+little birds by such cowardly means, but that since amongst these birds
+there were larks and thrushes and plump blackbirds and other sweet
+musicians of the air, whose innocent lives were spent in singing the
+praises of God, his sin became a hideous sacrilege.
+
+Finally I learnt that coming that morning upon half a score of poor
+fluttering terrified birds held fast in Rinolfo's viscous snares, the
+little girl had given them their liberty and had set about breaking up the
+springes.  At this occupation he had caught her, and there is no doubt that
+he would have taken a rude vengeance but for the sanctuary which she had
+found in me.
+
+And when I had heard, behold me for the first time indulging the
+prerogative that was mine by right of birth, and dispensing justice at
+Mondolfo like the lord of life and death that I was there.
+
+"You, Rinolfo," I said, "will set no more snares here at Mondolfo, nor will
+you ever again enter these gardens under pain of my displeasure and its
+consequences.  And as for this child, if you dare to molest her for what
+has happened now, or if you venture so much as to lay a finger upon her at
+any time and I have word of it, I shall deal with you as with a felon.  Now
+go."
+
+He went straight to his father, the seneschal, with a lying tale of my
+having threatened him with violence and forbidden him ever to enter the
+garden again because he had caught me there with Luisina--as the child was
+called--in my arms.  And Messer Giojoso, full of parental indignation at
+this gross treatment of his child, and outraged chastity at the notion of a
+young man of churchly aims, as were mine, being in perversive dalliance
+with that peasant-wench, repaired straight to my mother with the story of
+it, which I doubt not lost nothing by its repetition.
+
+Meanwhile I abode there with Luisina.  I was in no haste to let her go.
+Her presence pleased me in some subtle, quite indefinable manner; and my
+sense of beauty, which, always strong, had hitherto lain dormant within me,
+was awake at last and was finding nourishment in the graces of her.
+
+I sat down upon the topmost of the terrace steps, and made her sit beside
+me.  This she did after some demur about the honour of it and her own
+unworthiness, objections which I brushed peremptorily aside.
+
+So we sat there on that May morning, quite close together, for which there
+was, after all, no need, seeing that the steps were of a noble width.  At
+our feet spread the garden away down the flight of terraces to end in the
+castle's grey, buttressed wall.  But from where we sat we could look beyond
+this, our glance meeting the landscape a mile or so away with the waters of
+the Taro glittering in the sunshine, and the Apennines, all hazy, for an
+ultimate background.
+
+I took her hand, which she relinquished to me quite freely and frankly with
+an innocence as great as my own; and I asked her who she was and how she
+came to Mondolfo.  It was then that I learnt that her name was Luisina,
+that she was the daughter of one of the women employed in the castle
+kitchen, who had brought her to help there a week ago from Borgo Taro,
+where she had been living with an aunt.
+
+To-day the notion of the Tyrant of Mondolfo sitting--almost coram populo--
+on the steps of the garden of his castle, clasping the hand of the daughter
+of one of his scullions, is grotesque and humiliating.  At the time the
+thought never presented itself to me at all, and had it done so it would
+have troubled me no whit.  She was my first glimpse of fresh young
+maidenhood, and I was filled with pleasant interest and desirous of more
+acquaintance with this phenomenon.  Beyond that I did not go.
+
+I told her frankly that she was very beautiful.  Whereupon she looked at me
+with suddenly startled eyes that were full of fearful questionings, and
+made to draw her hand from mine.  Unable to understand her fears, and
+seeking to reassure her, to convince her that in me she had a friend, one
+who would ever protect her from the brutalities of all the Rinolfos in the
+world, I put an arm about her shoulders and drew her closer to me, gently
+and protectingly.
+
+She suffered it very stonily, like a poor fascinated thing that is robbed
+by fear of its power to resist the evil that it feels enfolding it.
+
+"0 Madonnino!" she whispered fearfully, and sighed.  "Nay, you must not.
+It...it is not good."
+
+"Not good?" quoth I, and it was just so that that fool of a son of
+Balducci's must have protested in the story when he was told by his father
+that it was not good to look on women.  "Nay, now, but it is good to me."
+
+"And they say you are to be a priest," she added, which seemed to me a very
+foolish and inconsequent thing to add.
+
+"Well, then?  And what of that?" I asked.
+
+She looked at me again with those timid eyes of hers.  "You should be at
+your studies," said she.
+
+"I am," said I, and smiled.  "I am studying a new subject."
+
+"Madonnino, it is not a subject whose study makes good priests," she
+announced, and puzzled me again by the foolish inconsequence of her words.
+
+Already, indeed, she began to disappoint me.  Saving my mother--whom I did
+not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether apart from
+what little humanity I had known until then--I had found that foolishness
+was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its cackle to a goose;
+and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by Fra Gervasio.  Now here
+in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had discovered a phase of
+womanhood unsuspected and exceptional.  She was driving me to conclude,
+however, that I had been mistaken, and that here was just a pretty husk
+containing a very trivial spirit, whose companionship must prove a dull
+affair when custom should have staled the first impression of her fresh
+young beauty.
+
+It is plain now that I did her an injustice, for there was about her words
+none of the inconsequence I imagined.  The fault was in myself and in the
+profound ignorance of the ways of men and women which went hand in hand
+with my deep but ineffectual learning in the ways of saints.
+
+Our entertainment, however, was not destined to go further.  For at the
+moment in which I puzzled over her words and sought to attach to them some
+intelligent meaning, there broke from behind us a scream that flung us
+apart, as startled as if we had been conscious indeed of guilt.
+
+We looked round to find that it had been uttered by my mother.  Not ten
+yards away she stood, a tall black figure against the grey background of
+the lichened wall, with Giojoso in attendance and Rinolfo slinking behind
+his father, leering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+REBELLION
+
+
+The sight of my mother startled me more than I can say.  It filled me with
+a positive dread of things indefinable.  Never before had I seen her coldly
+placid countenance so strangely disordered, and her unwonted aspect it must
+have been that wrought so potently upon me.
+
+No longer was she the sorrowful spectre, white-faced, with downcast eyes
+and level, almost inanimate, tones.  Her cheeks were flushed unnaturally,
+her lips were quivering, and angry fires were smouldering in her deep-set
+eyes.
+
+Swiftly she came down to us, seeming almost to glide over the ground.  Not
+me she addressed, but poor Luisina; and her voice was hoarse with an awful
+anger.
+
+"Who are you, wench?" quoth she.  "What make you here in Mondolfo?"
+
+Luisina had risen and stood swaying there, very white and with averted
+eyes, her hands clasping and unclasping.  Her lips moved; but she was too
+terrified to answer.  It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my
+mother of the girl's name and condition.  And upon learning it her anger
+seemed to increase.
+
+"A kitchen-wench!" she cried.  "0 horror!"
+
+And quite suddenly, as if by inspiration, scarce knowing what I said or
+that I spoke at all, I answered her out of the store of the theological
+learning with which she had had me stuffed.
+
+"We are all equals in the sight of God, madam mother."
+
+She flashed me a glance of anger, of pious anger than which none can be
+more terrible.
+
+"Blasphemer!" she denounced me.  "What has God to do with this?"
+
+She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to
+offer.
+
+"And as for that wanton," she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso, "let
+her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo.  Set the grooms to
+it."
+
+But upon that command of hers I leapt of a sudden to my feet, a tightening
+about my heart, and beset by a certain breathlessness that turned me pale.
+
+Here again, it seemed, was to be repeated--though with methods a thousand
+times more barbarous and harsh--the wrong that was done years ago in the
+case of poor Gino Falcone.  And the reason for it in this instance was not
+even dimly apparent to me.  Falcone I had loved; indeed, in my eighteen
+years of life he was the only human being who had knocked for admission
+upon the portals of my heart.  Him they had driven forth.  And now, here
+was a child--the fairest creature of God's that until that hour I had
+beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and desirable, and
+whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone.  Her too they would
+drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that revolted me.
+
+Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection
+was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so
+fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of
+the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger.
+
+All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is
+jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever
+known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for the
+love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding the
+blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle mandates of
+the God Incarnate.
+
+Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at
+peace in pharisaic self-righteousness.
+
+But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone,
+and let her cruel, pietistic will be done.  I had grown since then, and I
+had ripened more than I was aware.  It remained for this moment to reveal
+to me the extent.  Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious of
+it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood.
+
+"Stay!" I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold and
+steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.
+
+He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.
+
+"You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have been
+bidden.  But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them dares
+to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him will I
+kill with these two hands."
+
+Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst them
+by those words.  Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the cause
+of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother, all
+a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but spoke no
+word.
+
+I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for the
+first time in my life.
+
+"Well?" I demanded of Giojoso.  "For what do you wait?  About it, sir, and
+do as my mother has commanded you."
+
+He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in ludicrous
+bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this path so
+suddenly grown thorny.
+
+Ma--madonna!" he stammered.
+
+She swallowed hard, and spoke at last.
+
+"Do you defy my will, Agostino?"
+
+"On the contrary, madam mother, I am enforcing it.  Your will shall be
+done; your order shall be given.  I insist upon it.  But it shall lie with
+the discretion of the grooms whether they obey you.  Am I to blame if they
+turn cowards?"
+
+0, I had found myself at last, and I was making a furious, joyous use of
+the discovery.
+
+"That...that were to make a mock of me and my authority," she protested.
+She was still rather helpless, rather breathless and confused, like one who
+has suddenly been hurled into cold water.
+
+"If you fear that, madam, perhaps you had better countermand your order."
+
+"Is the girl to remain in Mondolfo against my wishes?  Are you so...so lost
+to shame?"  A returning note of warmth in her accents warned me that she
+was collecting herself to deal with the situation.
+
+"Nay," said I, and I looked at Luisina, who stood there so pale and
+tearful.  "I think that for her own sake, poor maid, it were better that
+she went, since you desire it.  But she shall not be whipped hence like a
+stray dog."
+
+"Come, child," I said to her, as gently as I could.  "Go pack, and quit
+this home of misery.  And be easy.  For if any man in Mondolfo attempts to
+hasten your going, he shall reckon with me."
+
+I laid a hand for an instant in kindliness and friendliness upon her
+shoulder.  "Poor little Luisina," said I, sighing.  But she shrank and
+trembled under my touch.  "Pity me a little, for they will not permit me
+any friends, and who is friendless is indeed pitiful."
+
+And then, whether the phrase touched her, so that her simple little nature
+was roused and she shook off what self-control she had ever learnt, or
+whether she felt secure enough in my protection to dare proclaim her mind
+before them all, she caught my hand, and, stooping, kissed it.
+
+"0 Madonnino!" she faltered, and her tears showered upon that hand of mine.
+"God reward you your sweet thought for me.  I shall pray for you,
+Madonnino."
+
+"Do, Luisina," said I.  "I begin to think I need it."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said my mother very sombrely.  And as she spoke, Luisina,
+as if her fears were reawakened, turned suddenly and went quickly along the
+terrace, past Rinolfo, who in that moment smiled viciously, and round the
+angle of the wall.
+
+"What...what are my orders, Madonna?" quoth the wretched seneschal,
+reminding her that all had not yet been resolved.
+
+She lowered her eyes to the ground, and folded her hands.  She was by now
+quite composed again, her habitual sorrowful self.
+
+"Let be," she said.  "Let the wench depart.  So that she goes we may count
+ourselves fortunate."
+
+"Fortunate, I think, is she," said I.  "Fortunate to return to the world
+beyond all this--the world of life and love that God made and that St.
+Francis praises.  I do not think he would have praised Mondolfo, for I
+greatly doubt that God had a hand in making it as it is to-day.  It is
+too...too arid."
+
+0, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning.
+
+"Are you mad, Agostino?" gasped my mother.
+
+"I think that I am growing sane," said I very sadly.  She flashed me one of
+her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten.
+
+"We must talk," she said.  "That girl..."  And then she checked.  "Come
+with me," she bade me.
+
+But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look for
+my friend Rinolfo.  He was moving stealthily away, following the road
+Luisina had taken.  The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at her,
+to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all anew.
+
+"Stay!  You there!  Rinolfo!" I called.
+
+He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.
+
+I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due.  Indeed, I
+think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have been
+held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come to more
+manhood than that of the cassock.
+
+"Come here," I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat the
+order more peremptorily.  At last he turned and came.
+
+"What now, Agostino?" cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my sleeve
+
+But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting
+uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen.  Over his shoulder I
+had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.
+
+"I think you smiled just now," said I.
+
+"Heh!  By Bacchus!" said he impudently, as who would say: "How could I help
+smiling?"
+
+"Will you tell me why you smiled?" I asked him.
+
+"Heh!  By Bacchus!" said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a
+barb.
+
+"Will you answer me?" I roared, and under my display of anger he looked
+truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.
+
+"Agostino!" came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power of
+habit that for a moment it controlled me and subdued my violence.
+
+Nevertheless I went on, "You smiled to see your spite succeed.  You smiled
+to see that poor child driven hence by your contriving; you smiled to see
+your broken snares avenged.  And you were following after her no doubt to
+tell her all this and to smile again.  This is all so, it is not?"
+
+"Heh!  By Bacchus!" said he for the third time, and at that my patience
+gave out utterly.  Ere any could stop me I had seized him by throat and
+belt and shaken him savagely.
+
+"Will you answer me like a fool?" I cried.  "Must you be taught sense and a
+proper respect of me?"
+
+"Agostino!  Agostino!" wailed my mother.  "Help, Ser Giojoso!  Do you not
+see that he is mad!"
+
+I do not believe that it was in my mind to do the fellow any grievous hurt.
+But he was so ill-advised in that moment as to attempt to defend himself.
+He rashly struck at one of the arms that held him, and by the act drove me
+into a fury ungovernable.
+
+"You dog!" I snarled at him from between clenched teeth.  "Would you raise
+your hand to me?  Am I your lord, or am I dirt of your own kind?  Go learn
+submission."  And I flung him almost headlong down the flight of steps.
+
+There were twelve of them and all of stone with edges still sharp enough
+though blunted here and there by time.  The fool had never suspected in me
+the awful strength which until that hour I had never suspected in myself.
+Else, perhaps, there had been fewer insolent shrugs, fewer foolish answers,
+and, last of all, no attempt to defy me physically.
+
+He screamed as I flung him; my mother screamed; and Giojoso screamed.
+
+After that there was a panic-stricken silence whilst he went thudding and
+bumping to the bottom of the flight.  I did not greatly care if I killed
+him.  But he was fortunate enough to get no worse hurt than a broken leg,
+which should keep him out of mischief for a season and teach him respect
+for me for all time.
+
+His father scuttled down the steps to the assistance of that precious son,
+who lay moaning where he had fallen, the angle at which the half of one of
+his legs stood to the rest of it, plainly announcing the nature of his
+punishment.
+
+My mother swept me indoors, loading me with reproaches as we went.  She
+dispatched some to help Giojoso, others she sent in urgent quest of Fra
+Gervasio, me she hurried along to her private dining-room.  I went very
+obediently, and even a little fearfully now that my passion had fallen from
+me.
+
+There, in that cheerless room, which not even the splashes of sunlight
+falling from the high-placed windows upon the whitewashed wall could help
+to gladden, I stood a little sullenly what time she first upbraided me and
+then wept bitterly, sitting in her high-backed chair at the table's head.
+
+At last Gervasio came, anxious and flurried, for already he had heard some
+rumour of what had chanced.  His keen eyes went from me to my mother and
+then back again to me.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"What has not happened?" wailed my mother.  "Agostino is possessed."
+
+He knit his brows.  "Possessed?" quoth he.
+
+"Ay, possessed--possessed of devils.  He has been violent.  He has broken
+poor Rinolfo's leg."
+
+"Ah!" said Gervasio, and turned to me frowning with full tutorial
+sternness.  "And what have you to say, Agostino?"
+
+"Why, that I am sorry," answered I, rebellious once more.  "I had hoped to
+break his dirty neck."
+
+"You hear him!" cried my mother.  "It is the end of the world, Gervasio.
+The boy is possessed, I say."
+
+"What was the cause of your quarrel?" quoth the friar, his manner still
+more stern.
+
+"Quarrel?" quoth I, throwing back my head and snorting audibly.  "I do not
+quarrel with Rinolfos.  I chastise them when they are insolent or displease
+me.  This one did both."
+
+He halted before me, erect and very stern--indeed almost threatening.  And
+I began to grow afraid; for, after all, I had a kindness for Gervasio, and
+I would not willingly engage in a quarrel with him.  Yet here I was
+determined to carry through this thing as I had begun it.
+
+It was my mother who saved the situation.
+
+"Alas!" she moaned, "there is wicked blood in him.  He has the abominable
+pride that was the ruin and downfall of his father."
+
+Now that was not the way to make an ally of Fra Gervasio.  It did the very
+opposite.  It set him instantly on my side, in antagonism to the abuser of
+my father's memory, a memory which he, poor man, still secretly revered.
+
+The sternness fell away from him.  He looked at her and sighed.  Then, with
+bowed head, and hands clasped behind him, he moved away from me a little.
+
+"Do not let us judge rashly," he said.  "Perhaps Agostino received some
+provocation.  Let us hear..."
+
+"0, you shall hear," she promised tearfully, exultant to prove him wrong.
+"You shall hear a yet worse abomination that was the cause of it."
+
+And out she poured the story that Rinolfo and his father had run to tell
+her--of how I had shown the fellow violence in the first instance because
+he had surprised me with Luisina in my arms.
+
+The friar's face grew dark and grave as he listened.  But ere she had quite
+done, unable longer to contain myself, I interrupted.
+
+"In that he lied like the muckworm that he is," I exclaimed.  "And it
+increases my regrets that I did not break his neck as I intended."
+
+"He lied?" quoth she, her eyes wide open in amazement--not at the fact, but
+at the audacity of what she conceived my falsehood.
+
+"It is not impossible," said Fra Gervasio.  "What is your story, Agostino?"
+
+I told it--how the child out of a very gentle and Christian pity had
+released the poor birds that were taken in Rinolfo's limed twigs, and how
+in a fury he had made to beat her, so that she had fled to me for shelter
+and protection; and how, thereupon, I had bidden him begone out of that
+garden, and never set foot in it again.
+
+"And now," I ended, "you know all the violence that I showed him, and the
+reason for it.  If you say that I did wrong, I warn you that I shall not
+believe you."
+
+"Indeed..." began the friar with a faint smile of friendliness.  But my
+mother interrupted him, betwixt sorrow and anger.
+
+"He lies, Gervasio.  He lies shamelessly.  0, into what a morass of sin has
+he not fallen, and every moment he goes deeper!  Have I not said that he is
+possessed?  We shall need the exorcist."
+
+"We shall indeed, madam mother, to clear your mind of foolishness," I
+answered hotly, for it stung me to the soul to be branded thus a liar, to
+have my word discredited by that of a lout such as Rinolfo.
+
+She rose a sombre pillar of indignation.  "Agostino, I am your mother," she
+reminded me.
+
+"Let us thank God that for that, at least, you cannot blame me," answered
+I, utterly reckless now.
+
+The answer crushed her back into her chair.  She looked appealingly at Fra
+Gervasio, who stood glum and frowning.  "Is he...is he perchance
+bewitched?" she asked the friar, quite seriously.  "Do you think that any
+spells might have..."
+
+He interrupted her with a wave of the hand and an impatient snort
+
+"We are at cross purposes here," he said.  "Agostino does not lie.  For
+that I will answer."
+
+"But, Fra Gervasio, I tell you that I saw them--that I saw them with these
+two eyes--sitting together on the terrace steps, and he had his arm about
+her.  Yet he denies it shamelessly to my face."
+
+"Said I ever a word of that?" I appealed me to the friar.  "Why, that was
+after Rinolfo left us.  My tale never got so far.  It is quite true.  I did
+sit beside her.  The child was troubled.  I comforted her.  Where was the
+harm?"
+
+"The harm?" quoth he.  "And you had your arm about her--and you to be a
+priest one day?"
+
+"And why not, pray?" quoth I.  "Is this some new sin that you have
+discovered--or that you have kept hidden from me until now?  To console the
+afflicted is an ordination of Mother Church; to love our fellow�creatures
+an ordination of our Blessed Lord Himself.  I was performing both.  Am I to
+be abused for that?"
+
+He looked at me very searchingly, seeking in my countenance--as I now
+know--some trace of irony or guile.  Finding none, he turned to my mother.
+He was very solemn.
+
+"Madonna," he said quietly, "I think that Agostino is nearer to being a
+saint than either you or I will ever get."
+
+She looked at him, first in surprise, then very sadly.  Slowly she shook
+her head.  "Unhappily for him there is another arbiter of saintship, Who
+sees deeper than do you, Gervasio."
+
+He bowed his head.  "Better not to look deep enough than to do as you seem
+in danger of doing, Madonna, and by looking too deep imagine things which
+do not exist."
+
+"Ah, you will defend him against reason even," she complained.  "His anger
+exists.  His thirst to kill--to stamp himself with the brand of Cain--
+exists.  He confesses that himself.  His insubordination to me you have
+seen for yourself; and that again is sin, for it is ordained that we shall
+honour our parents.
+
+"0!" she moaned.  "My authority is all gone.  He is beyond my control.  He
+has shaken off the reins by which I sought to guide him."
+
+"You had done well to have taken my advice a year ago, Madonna.  Even now
+it is not too late.  Let him go to Pavia, to the Sapienza, to study his
+humanities."
+
+"Out into the world!" she cried in horror.  "0, no, no!  I have sheltered
+him here so carefully!"
+
+"Yet you cannot shelter him for ever," said he.  "He must go out into the
+world some day."
+
+"He need not," she faltered.  "If the call were strong enough within him, a
+convent..."  She left her sentence unfinished, and looked at me.
+
+"Go, Agostino," she bade me.  "Fra Gervasio and I must talk."
+
+I went reluctantly, since in the matter of their talk none could have had a
+greater interest than I, seeing that my fate stood in the balance of it.
+But I went, none the less, and her last words to me as I was departing were
+an injunction that I should spend the time until I should take up my
+studies for the day with Fra Gervasio in seeking forgiveness for the
+morning's sins and grace to do better in the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FRA GERVASIO
+
+
+I did not again see my mother that day, nor did she sup with us that
+evening.  I was told by Fra Gervasio that on my account was she in retreat,
+praying for light and guidance in the thing that must be determined
+concerning me.
+
+I withdrew early to my little bedroom overlooking the gardens, a room that
+had more the air of a monastic cell than a bedchamber fitting the estate of
+the Lord of Mondolfo.  The walls were whitewashed, and besides the crucifix
+that hung over my bed, their only decoration was a crude painting of St.
+Augustine disputing with the little boy on the seashore.
+
+For bed I had a plain hard pallet, and the room contained, in addition, a
+wooden chair, a stool upon which was set a steel basin with its ewer for my
+ablutions, and a cupboard for the few sombre black garments I possessed--
+for the amiable vanity of raiment usual in young men of my years had never
+yet assailed me; I had none to emulate in that respect.
+
+I got me to bed, blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep.  But
+sleep was playing truant from me.  Long I lay there surveying the events of
+that day--the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery of myself; the
+most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which, although I
+scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted love and battle, the
+strongest meats that are in the dish of life.
+
+For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and putting together
+pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softly opened, and I
+started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taper which he sheltered
+with one hand, so that the light of it was thrown upwards into his pale,
+gaunt face.
+
+Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"Sh!" he admonished me, a finger to his lips.  He advanced to my side, set
+down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of my bed.
+
+"Lie down again, my son," he bade me.  "I have something to say to you."
+
+He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet to my
+chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.
+
+"Madonna has decided," he informed me then.  "She fears that having once
+resisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and that to
+keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her.  Therefore she has
+resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo."
+
+A faint excitement began to stir in me.  To leave Mondolfo--to go out into
+that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with my fellow-man, with
+youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens like Luisina, to see cities and
+the ways of cities; here indeed was matter for excitement.  Yet it was an
+excitement not altogether pleasurable; for with my very natural curiosity,
+and with my eagerness to have it gratified, were blended certain fears
+imbibed from the only quality of reading that had been mine.
+
+The world was an evil place in which temptations seethed, and through which
+it was difficult to come unscathed.  Therefore, I feared the world and the
+adventuring beyond the shelter of the walls of the castle of Mondolfo; and
+yet I desired to judge for myself the evil of which I read, the evil which
+in moments of doubt I even permitted myself to question.
+
+My reasoning followed the syllogism that God being good and God having
+created the world, it was not possible that the creation should be evil.
+It was well enough to say that the devil was loose in it.  But that was not
+to say that the devil had created it; and it would be necessary to prove
+this ere it could be established that it was evil in itself--as many
+theologians appeared to seek to show--and a place to be avoided.
+
+Such was the question that very frequently arose in my mind, ultimately to
+be dismissed as a lure of Satan's to imperil my poor soul.  It battled for
+existence now amid my fears; and it gained some little ascendancy.
+
+"And whither am I to go?" I asked.  "To Pavia, or to the University of
+Bologna?"
+
+"Had my advice been heeded," said he, "one or the other would have been
+your goal.  But your mother took counsel with Messer Arcolano."
+
+He shrugged, and there was contempt in the lines of his mouth.  He
+distrusted Arcolano, the regular cleric who was my mother's confessor and
+spiritual adviser, exerting over her a very considerable influence.  She,
+herself, had admitted that it was this Arcolano who had induced her to that
+horrid traffic in my father's life and liberty which she was mercifully
+spared from putting into effect.
+
+"Messer Arcolano," he resumed after a pause, "has a good friend in
+Piacenza, a pedagogue, a doctor of civil and canon law, a man who, he says,
+is very learned and very pious, named Astorre Fifanti.  I have heard of
+this Fifanti, and I do not at all agree with Messer Arcolano.  I have said
+so.  But your mother..."  He broke off.  "It is decided that you go to him
+at once, to take up your study of the humanities under his tutelage, and
+that you abide with him until you are of an age for ordination, which your
+mother hopes will be very soon.  Indeed, it is her wish that you should
+enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and your novitiate next year, to fit
+you for the habit of St. Augustine."
+
+He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hear what
+of my own accord I might have to urge.  But my mind was incapable of
+travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the world to-morrow.
+
+The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from the idea
+to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than my mere
+priesthood had been spoken of.  So I lay there without thinking of any
+words in which to answer him.
+
+Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little.  "Agostino," he said
+presently, "you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a step whose
+import you may never fully have considered.  I have been your tutor, and
+your rearing has been my charge.  That charge I have faithfully carried out
+as was ordained me, but not as I would have carried it out had I been free
+to follow my heart and my conscience in the matter.
+
+"The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mind
+that you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your own
+inherent desire.  I would have you consider it well now that the time
+approaches for a step which is irrevocable."
+
+His words and his manner startled me alike.
+
+"How?" I cried.  "Do you say that it might be better if I did not seek
+ordination?  What better can the world offer than the priesthood?  Have you
+not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?"
+
+"To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master, becoming
+in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation, of self-
+sacrifice and purity," he answered slowly, "that is the noblest thing a man
+can be.  But to be a bad priest--there are other ways of being damned less
+hurtful to the Church."
+
+"To be a bad priest?" quoth I.  "Is it possible to be a bad priest?"
+
+"It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.
+Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.
+Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolis of
+the Living.  Others, Agostino--and these are men most worthy of pity--enter
+the Church because they are driven to it in youth by ill-advised parents.
+I would not have you one of these, my son."
+
+I stared at him, my amazement ever growing.  "Do you...do you think I am in
+danger of it?" I asked.
+
+"That is a question you must answer for yourself.  No man can know what is
+in another's heart.  I have trained you as I was bidden train you.  I have
+seen you devout, increasing in piety, and yet..."  He paused, and looked at
+me again.  "It may be that this is no more than the fruit of your training;
+it may be that your piety and devotion are purely intellectual.  It is very
+often so.  Men know the precepts of religion as a lawyer knows the law.  It
+no more follows out of that that they are religious--though they conceive
+that it does--than it follows that a lawyer is law-abiding.  It is in the
+acts of their lives that we must seek their real natures, and no single act
+of your life, Agostino, has yet given sign that the call is in your heart.
+
+"To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with the world,
+you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that you did not kill
+is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg.  I do not say that
+you did a very sinful thing.  In a worldly youth of your years the
+provocation you received would have more than justified your action.  But
+not in one who aims at a life of humility and self-forgetfulness such as
+the priesthood imposes."
+
+"And yet," said I, "I heard you tell my mother below stairs that I was
+nearer sainthood than either of you."
+
+He smiled sadly, and shook his head.  "They were rash words, Agostino.  I
+mistook ignorance for purity--a common error.  I have pondered it since,
+and my reflection brings me to utter what in this household amounts to
+treason."
+
+"I do not understand," I confessed.
+
+"My duty to your mother I have discharged more faithfully perhaps than I
+had the right to do.  My duty to my God I am discharging now, although to
+you I may rather appear as an advocatus diaboli.  This duty is to warn you;
+to bid you consider well the step you are to take.
+
+"Listen, Agostino.  I am speaking to you out of the bitter experience of a
+very cruel life.  I would not have you tread the path I have trodden.  It
+seldom leads to happiness in this world or the next; it seldom leads
+anywhere but straight to Hell."
+
+He paused, and I looked into his haggard face in utter stupefaction to hear
+such words from the lips of one whom I had ever looked upon as goodness
+incarnate.
+
+"Had I not known that some day I must speak to you as I am speaking now, I
+had long since abandoned a task which I did not consider good.  But I
+feared to leave you.  I feared that if I were removed my place might be
+taken by some time-server who to earn a livelihood would tutor you as your
+mother would have you tutored, and thrust you forth without warning upon
+the life to which you have been vowed.
+
+"Once, years ago, I was on the point of resisting your mother."  He passed
+a hand wearily across his brow.  "It was on the night that Gino Falcone
+left us, driven forth by her because she accounted it her duty.  Do you
+remember, Agostino?"
+
+"0, I remember!" I answered.
+
+"That night," he pursued, "I was angered--righteously angered to see so
+wicked and unchristian an act performed in blasphemous self-righteousness.
+I was on the point of denouncing the deed as it deserved, of denouncing
+your mother for it to her face.  And then I remembered you.  I remembered
+the love I had borne your father, and my duty to him, to see that no such
+wrong was done you in the end as that which I feared.  I reflected that if
+I spoke the words that were burning my tongue for utterance, I should go as
+Gino Falcone had gone.
+
+"Not that the going mattered.  I could better save my soul elsewhere than
+here in this atmosphere of Christianity misunderstood; and there are always
+convents of my order to afford me shelter.  But your being abandoned
+mattered; and I felt that if I went, abandoned you would be to the
+influences that drove and moulded you without consideration for your nature
+and your inborn inclinations.  Therefore I remained, and left Falcone's
+cause unchampioned.  Later I was to learn that he had found a friend, and
+that he was...that he was being cared for."
+
+"By whom?" quoth I, more interested perhaps in this than in anything that
+he had yet said.
+
+"By one who was your father's friend," he said, after a moment's
+hesitation, "a soldier of fortune by name of Galeotto--a leader of free
+lances who goes by the name of Il Gran Galeotto.  But let that be.  I want
+to tell you of myself, that you may judge with what authority I speak.
+
+"I was destined, Agostino, for a soldier's life in the following of my
+valiant foster-brother, your father.  Had I preserved the strength of my
+early youth, undoubtedly a soldier's harness would be strapped here to-day
+in the place of this scapulary.  But it happened that an illness left me
+sickly and ailing, and unfitted me utterly for such a life.  Similarly it
+unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that I threatened to become a
+useless burden upon my parents, who were peasant-folk.  To avoid this they
+determined to make a monk of me; they offered me to God because they found
+me unfitted for the service of man; and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk,
+they accounted that in doing so they did a good and pious thing.
+
+I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things I studied;
+I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to the future; I
+submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, and before I
+awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, I was in
+orders."
+
+He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--"For ten years thereafter,
+Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle a knotted
+length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung and chafed me
+and tore my body.  For ten years, then, I never knew bodily ease or proper
+rest at night.  Only thus could I bring into subjection my rebellious
+flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to me must have
+been a path of sacrilege and sin.  I was devout.  Had I not been devout and
+strong in my devotion I could never have endured what I was forced to
+endure as the alternative to damnation, because without consideration for
+my nature I had been ordained a priest.
+
+"Consider this, Agostino; consider it well.  I would not have you go that
+way, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur.
+Because I know--I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and thanking
+God for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me--that for one
+priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such agonizing means,
+a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of their example they
+drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the hands of her enemies,
+which is a still heavier reckoning to meet hereafter."
+
+A spell of silence followed.  I was strangely moved by his tale, strangely
+impressed by the warning that I perceived in it.  And yet my confidence, I
+think, was all unshaken.
+
+And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedside to
+ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed my confidence
+in my answer.
+
+"It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed," I said.  "The life
+that will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I would
+follow."
+
+He looked at me long and sadly.  "You must do as your heart bids you," he
+sighed.  "And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learnt to
+speak to you more plainly."  And upon that he left me.
+
+Next day I set out.
+
+My leave-takings were brief.  My mother shed some tears and many prayers
+over me at parting.  Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me.
+That were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I should
+treasure as a sacred thing.  Her tears were tears of dread lest, surrounded
+by perils in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify her vows
+
+She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me.
+Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilment of
+her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered.  To the price that
+later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave a single
+thought.
+
+Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio.  My mother had suffered
+me to do no more than kiss her hand--as was my custom.  But the friar took
+me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms.
+
+"Remember!" he murmured huskily and impressively.  And then, putting me
+from him, God help and guide you, my son," were his last words.
+
+I went down the steps into the courtyard where most of the servants were
+gathered to see their lord's departure, whilst Messer Arcolano, who was to
+go with me, paused to assure my mother of the care that he would have of
+me, and to receive her final commands concerning me.
+
+Four men, mounted and armed, stood waiting to escort us, and with them were
+three mules, one for Arcolano, one for myself, and the third already laden
+with my baggage.
+
+A servant held my stirrup, and I swung myself up into the saddle, with
+which I was but indifferently acquainted.  Then Arcolano mounted too,
+puffing over the effort, for he was a corpulent, rubicund man with the
+fattest hands I have ever seen.
+
+I touched my mule with the whip, and the beast began to move.  Arcolano
+ambled beside me; and behind us, abreast, came the men-at-arms.  Thus we
+rode down towards the gateway, and as we went the servants murmured their
+valedictory words.
+
+"A safe journey, Madonnino!"
+
+"A good return, Madonnino!"
+
+I smiled back at them, and in the eyes of more than one I detected a look
+of commiseration.
+
+Once I turned, when the end of the quadrangle was reached, and I waved my
+cap to my mother and Fra Gervasio, who stood upon the steps where I had
+left them.  The friar responded by waving back to me.  But my mother made
+no sign.  Likely enough her eyes were upon the ground again already
+
+Her unresponsiveness almost angered me.  I felt that a man had the right to
+some slight display of tenderness from the woman who had borne him.  Her
+frigidity wounded me.  It wounded me the more in comparison with the
+affectionate clasp of old Gervasio's arms.  With a knot in my throat I
+passed from the sunlight of the courtyard into the gloom of the gateway,
+and out again beyond, upon the drawbridge.  Our hooves thudded briskly upon
+the timbers, and then with a sharper note upon the cobbles beyond.
+
+I was outside the walls of the castle for the first time.  Before me the
+long, rudely paved street of the borgo sloped away to the market-place of
+the town of Mondolfo.  Beyond that lay the world, itself--all at my feet,
+as I imagined.
+
+The knot in my throat was dissolved.  My pulses quickened with
+anticipation.  I dug my heels into the mule's belly and pushed on, the
+portly cleric at my side.
+
+And thus I left my home and the gloomy, sorrowful influence of my most
+dolorous mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+GIULIANA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI
+
+
+Let me not follow in too close detail the incidents of that journey lest I
+be in danger of becoming tedious.  In themselves they contained laughable
+matter enough, but in the mere relation they may seem dull.
+
+Down the borgo, ahead of us, ran the rumour that here was the Madonnino of
+Mondolfo, and the excitement that the announcement caused was something at
+which I did not know whether to be flattered or offended.
+
+The houses gave up their inhabitants, and all stood at gaze as we passed,
+to behold for the first time this lord of theirs of whom they had heard
+Heaven knows what stories--for where there are elements of mystery human
+invention can be very active.
+
+At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon the
+glossy neck of my mule.  Very soon, however, growing accustomed to being
+stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became a
+trouble to Messer Arcolano.  For as I looked about me there were a hundred
+things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer inspection.
+
+We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a
+market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val di
+Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
+
+I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time
+that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before me,
+making way invitingly.  But Messer Arcolano urged me along, saying that we
+had far to go, and that in Piacenza there were better shops and that I
+should have more time to view them.
+
+Then it was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my eye--
+Durfreno's arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon--and I must draw rein
+and cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work, plaguing
+Arcolano with a score of questions concerning the identity of the main
+figure and how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and whether he had
+succeeded in the end in his attempt to strangle it.
+
+Arcolano, out of patience by now, answered me shortly that the reptile was
+the sculptor's pious symbolization of sin, which St. Hercules was
+overcoming.
+
+I am by no means sure that such was not indeed his own conception of the
+matter, and that there did not exist in his mind some confusion as to
+whether the pagan demigod had a place in the Calendar or not.  For he was
+an uncultured, plebeian fellow, and what my mother should have found in him
+to induce her to prefer him for her confessor and spiritual counsellor to
+the learned Fra Gervasio is one more of the many mysteries which an attempt
+to understand her must ever present to me.
+
+Then there were the young peasant girls who thronged about and stood in
+groups, blushing furiously under my glance, which Arcolano vainly bade me
+lower.  A score of times did it seem to me that one of these brown-legged,
+lithe, comely creatures was my little Luisina; and more than once I was on
+the point of addressing one or another, to discover my mistake and be
+admonished for my astounding frivolousness by Messer Arcolano.
+
+And when once or twice I returned the friendly laughter of these girls,
+whilst the grinning serving-men behind me would nudge one another and wink
+to see me--as they thought--so very far off the road to priesthood to which
+I was vowed, hot anathema poured from the fat cleric's lips, and he urged
+me roughly to go faster.
+
+His tortures ended at last when we came into the open country.  We rode in
+silence for a mile or two, I being full of thought of all that I had seen,
+and infected a little by the fever of life through which I had just passed.
+At last, I remember that I turned to Arcolano, who was riding with the ears
+of his mule in line with my saddle-bow, and asked him to point out to me
+where my dominions ended.
+
+The meek question provoked an astonishingly churlish answer.  I was shortly
+bidden to give my mind to other than worldly things; and with that he began
+a homily, which lasted for many a weary mile, upon the vanities of the
+world and the glories of Paradise--a homily of the very tritest, upon
+subjects whereupon I, myself, could have dilated to better purpose than
+could His Ignorance.
+
+The distance from Mondolfo to Piacenza is a good eight leagues, and though
+we had set out very early, it was past noon before we caught our first
+glimpse of the city by the Po, lying low as it does in the vast Aemilian
+plain, and Arcolano set himself to name to me this church and that whose
+spires stood out against the cobalt background of the sky.
+
+An hour or so after our first glimpse of the city, our weary beasts brought
+us up to the Gate of San Lazzaro.  But we did not enter, as I had hoped.
+Messer Arcolano had had enough of me and my questions at Mondolfo, and he
+was not minded to expose himself to worse behaviour on my part in the more
+interesting thoroughfares of this great city.
+
+So we passed it by, and rode under the very walls by way of an avenue of
+flowering chestnuts, round to the northern side, until we emerged suddenly
+upon the sands of Po, and I had my first view at close quarters of that
+mighty river flowing gently about the islands, all thick with willows, that
+seemed to float upon its gleaming waters.
+
+Fishermen were at work in a boat out in mid-stream, heaving their nets to
+the sound of the oddest cantilena, and I was all for pausing there to watch
+their operations.  But Arcolano urged me onward with that impatience of his
+which took no account of my very natural curiosity.  Presently I drew rein
+again with exclamations of delight and surprise to see the wonderful bridge
+of boats that spanned the river a little higher up.
+
+But we had reached our destination.  Arcolano called a halt at the gates of
+a villa that stood a little way back from the road on slightly rising
+ground near the Fodesta Gate.  He bade one of the grooms get down and open,
+and presently we ambled up a short avenue between tall banks of laurel, to
+the steps of the villa itself.
+
+It was a house of fair proportions, though to me at the time, accustomed to
+the vast spaces of Mondolfo, it seemed the merest hut.  It was painted
+white, and it had green Venetian shutters which gave it a cool and pleasant
+air; and through one of the open windows floated a sound of merry voices,
+in which a woman's laugh was predominant.
+
+The double doors stood open and through these there emerged a moment after
+our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us swiftly, whose
+thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano in the pause he made
+before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of ill-fitting shoes.
+
+This was Messer Astorre Fifanti, the pedant under whom I was to study, and
+with whom I was to take up my residence for some months to come.
+
+Seeing in him one who was to be set in authority over me, I surveyed him
+with the profoundest interest, and from that instant I disliked him.
+
+He was, as I have said, a tall, thin man; and he had long hands that were
+very big and bony in the knuckles.  Indeed they looked like monstrous
+skeleton hands with a glove of skin stretched over them.  He was quite
+bald, save for a curly grizzled fringe that surrounded the back of his
+head, on a level with his enormous ears, and his forehead ran up to the
+summit of his egg-shaped head.  His nose was pendulous and his eyes were
+closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty.  He wore no beard, and his
+leathery cheeks were blue from the razor.  His age may have been fifty; his
+air was mean and sycophantic.  Finally he was dressed in a black gaberdine
+that descended to his knees, and he ended in a pair of the leanest shanks
+and largest feet conceivable.
+
+To greet us he fawned and washed his bony hands in the air.
+
+"You have made a safe journey, then," he purred.  "Benedicamus Dominum!"
+
+"Deo gratias!" rumbled the fat priest, as he heaved his rotundity from the
+saddle with the assistance of one of the grooms.
+
+They shook hands, and Fifanti turned to survey me for the second time.
+
+"And this is my noble charge!" said he.  "Salve!  Be welcome to my house,
+Messer Agostino."
+
+I got to earth, accepted his proffered hand, and thanked him.
+
+Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came
+hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors.
+
+I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time
+Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too, of
+some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon which he
+desired the priest's rare judgment.
+
+Arcolano hesitated, and his gluttonous mouth quivered and twitched.  But he
+excused himself in the end.  He must on.  He had business to discharge in
+the town, and he must return at once and render an account of our safe
+journey to the Countess at Mondolfo.  If he tarried now it would grow late
+ere he reached Mondolfo, and late travelling pleased him not at all.  As it
+was his bones would be weary and his flesh tender from so much riding; but
+he would offer it up to Heaven for his sins.
+
+And when the too-amiable Fifanti had protested how little there could be
+the need in the case of one so saintly as Messer Arcolano, the priest made
+his farewells.  He gave me his blessing and enjoined upon me obedience to
+one who stood to me in loco parentis, heaved himself back on to his mule,
+and departed with the grooms at his heels.
+
+Then Doctor Fifanti set a bony hand upon my shoulder, and opined that after
+my journey I must be in need of refreshment; and with that he led me within
+doors, assuring me that in his house the needs of the body were as closely
+cared for as the needs of the mind.
+
+"For an empty belly," he ended with his odious, sycophantic geniality,
+"makes an empty heart and an empty head."
+
+We passed through a hall that was prettily paved in mosaics, into a chamber
+of good proportions, which seemed gay to me after the gloom by which I had
+been surrounded.
+
+The ceiling was painted blue and flecked with golden stars, whilst the
+walls were hung with deep blue tapestries on which was figured in grey and
+brownish red a scene which, I was subsequently to learn, represented the
+metamorphosis of Actaeon.  At the moment I did not look too closely.  The
+figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused me
+quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes.
+
+A good-sized table stood in the middle of the floor, bearing, upon a broad
+strip of embroidered white napery, sparkling crystal and silver, vessels of
+wine and platters of early fruits.  About it sat a very noble company of
+some half-dozen men and two very resplendent women.  One of these was
+slight and little, very dark and vivacious with eyes full of a malicious
+humour.  The other, of very noble proportions, of a fine, willowy height,
+with coiled ropes of hair of a colour such as I had never dreamed could be
+found upon human being.  It was ruddy and glowed like metal.  Her face and
+neck--and of the latter there was a very considerable display--were of the
+warm pale tint of old ivory.  She had large, low-lidded eyes, which lent
+her face a languid air.  Her brow was low and broad, and her lips of a most
+startling red against the pallor of the rest.
+
+She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow smile,
+holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous welcome.
+
+"This, Ser Agostino," said Fifanti, "is my wife."
+
+Had he announced her to be his daughter it would have been more credible on
+the score of their respective years, though equally incredible on the score
+of their respective personalities.
+
+I gaped foolishly in my amazement, a little dazzled, too, by the effulgence
+of her eyes, which were now raised to the level of my own.  I lowered my
+glance abashed, and answered her as courteously as I could.  Then she led
+me to the table, and presented me to the company, naming each to me.
+
+The first was a slim and very dainty young gentleman in a scarlet walking-
+suit, over which he wore a long scarlet mantle.  A gold cross was suspended
+from his neck by a massive chain of gold.  He was delicately featured, with
+a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair hair that fell in
+waves about his effeminate face.  He had the whitest of hands, very
+delicately veined in blue, and it was--as I soon observed--his habit to
+carry them raised, so that the blood might not flow into them to coarsen
+their beauty.  Attached to his left wrist by a fine chain was a gold
+pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very beautifully chiselled.
+Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous sapphire ring of his rank.
+
+That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from
+being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence--never dreaming that
+a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a guest so
+exalted.
+
+He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of
+Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
+
+The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed
+personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had
+pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.
+
+He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of the
+man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing his
+ring.  I knelt to kiss it, overawed by his ecclesiastical rank, however
+little awed by the man within it.
+
+As I rose again he looked up at me considering my inches.
+
+"Why," said he, "here is a fine soldier lost to glory."  And as he spoke,
+he half turned to a young man who sat beside him, a man at whom I was eager
+to take a fuller look, for his face was most strangely familiar to me.
+
+He was tall and graceful, very beautifully dressed in purple and gold, and
+his blue-black hair was held in a net or coif of finest gold thread.  His
+garments clung as tightly and smoothly as if he had been kneaded into
+them--as, indeed, he had.  But it was his face that held my eyes.  It was a
+sun-tanned, shaven hawk-face with black level brows, black eyes, and a
+strong jaw, handsome save for something displeasing in the lines of the
+mouth, something sardonic, proud, and contemptuous.
+
+The Cardinal addressed him.  "You breed fine fellows in your family,
+Cosimo," were the words with which he startled me, and then I knew where I
+had seen that face before.  In my mirror.
+
+He was as like me--save that he was blacker and not so ta1l--as if he had
+been own brother to me instead of merely cousin as I knew at once he was.
+For he must be that guelphic Anguissola renegade who served the Pope and
+was high in favour with Farnese, and Captain of Justice in Piacenza.  In
+age he may have been some seven or eight years older than myself.
+
+I stared at him now with interest, and I found attractions in him, the
+chief of which was his likeness to my father.  So must my father have
+looked when he was this fellow's age.  He returned my glance with a smile
+that did not improve his countenance, so contemptuously languid was it, so
+very supercilious.
+
+"You may stare, cousin," said he, "for I think I do you the honour to be
+something like you."
+
+"You will find him," lisped the Cardinal to me, "the most self-complacent
+dog in Italy.  When he sees in you a likeness to himself he flatters
+himself grossly, which, as you know him better, you will discover to be his
+inveterate habit.  He is his own most assiduous courtier."  And my Lord
+Gambara sank back into his chair, languishing, the pomander to his
+nostrils.
+
+All laughed, and Messer Cosimo with them, still considering me.
+
+But Messer Fifanti's wife had yet to make me known to three others who sat
+there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady.  This last was a cousin of her
+own--Donna Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for the first and last
+time.
+
+The three remaining men of the company are of little interest save one,
+whose name was to be well known--nay, was well known already, though not to
+one who had lived in such seclusion as mine.
+
+This was that fine poet Annibale Caro, whom I have heard judged to be all
+but the equal of the great Petrarca himself.  A man who had less the air of
+a poet it would not be easy to conceive.  He was of middle height and of a
+habit of body inclining to portliness, and his age may have been forty.
+His face was bearded, ruddy, and small-featured, and there was about him an
+air of smug prosperity; he was dressed with care, but he had none of the
+splendour of the Cardinal or my cousin.  Let me add that he was secretary
+to the Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and that he was here in Piacenza on a
+mission to the Governor in which his master's interests were concerned.
+
+The other two who completed that company are of no account, and indeed
+their names escape me, though I seem to remember that one was named Pacini
+and that he was said to be a philosopher of considerable parts.
+
+Bidden to table by Messer Fifanti, I took the chair he offered me beside
+his lady, and presently came the old servant whom already I had seen,
+bearing meat for me.  I was hungry, and I fell to with zest, what time a
+pleasant ripple of talk ran round the board.  Facing me sat my cousin, and
+I never observed until my hunger was become less clamorous with what an
+insistence he regarded me.  At last, however, our eyes met across the
+board.  He smiled that crooked, somewhat unpleasant smile of his.
+
+"And so, Ser Agostino, they are to make a priest of you?" said he.
+
+"God pleasing," I answered soberly, and perhaps shortly.
+
+"And if his brains at all resemble his body," lisped the Cardinal-legate,
+"you may live to see an Anguissola Pope, my Cosimo."
+
+My stare must have betrayed my amazement at such words.  "Not so,
+magnificent," I made answer.  "I am destined for the life monastic."
+
+"Monastic!" quoth he, in a sort of horror, and looking as if a bad smell
+had suddenly been thrust under his nose.  He shrugged and pouted and had
+fresh recourse to his pomander.  "0, well!  Friars have become popes before
+to-day."
+
+"I am to enter the hermit order of St. Augustine," I again corrected.
+
+"Ah!" said Caro, in his big, full voice.  "He aspires not to Rome but to
+Heaven, my lord."
+
+"Then what the devil does he in your house, Fifanti?" quoth the Cardinal.
+"Are you to teach him sanctity?"
+
+And the table shook with laughter at a jest I did not understand any more
+than I understood my Lord Cardinal.
+
+Messer Fifanti, sitting at the table-head, shot me a glance of anxious
+inquiry; he smiled foolishly, and washed his hands in the air again, his
+mind fumbling for an answer that should turn aside that barbed jest.  But
+he was forestalled by my cousin Cosimo.
+
+"The teaching might come more aptly from Monna Giuliana," said he, and
+smiled very boldly across at Fifanti's lady who sat beside me, whilst a
+frown grew upon the prodigious brow of the pedant.
+
+"Indeed, indeed," the Cardinal murmured, considering her through half-
+closed eyes, "there is no man but may enter Paradise at her bidding."  And
+he sighed furiously, whilst she chid him for his boldness; and for all that
+much of what they said was in a language that might have been unknown to
+me, yet was I lost in amazement to see a prelate made so free with.  She
+turned to me, and the glory of her eyes fell about my soul like an
+effulgence.
+
+"Do not heed them, Ser Agostino.  They are profane and wicked men," she
+said, "and if you aspire to holiness, the less you see of them the better
+will it be for you."
+
+I did not doubt it, yet I dared not make so bold as to confess it, and I
+wondered why they should laugh to hear her earnest censure of them.
+
+"It is a thorny path, this path of holiness," said the Cardinal sighing.
+
+"Your excellency has been told so, we assume," quoth Caro, who had a very
+bitter tongue for one who looked so well-nourished and contented.
+
+"I might have found it so for myself but that my lot has been cast among
+sinners," answered the Cardinal, comprehending the company in his glance
+and gesture.  "As it is, I do what I can to mend their lot."
+
+"Now here is gallantry of a different sort!" cried the little Leocadia with
+a giggle.
+
+"0, as to that," quoth Cosimo, showing his fine teeth in a smile, "there is
+a proverb as to the gallantry of priests.  It is like the love of women,
+which again is like water in a basket--as soon in as out."  And his eyes
+hung upon Giuliana.
+
+"When you are the basket, sir captain, shall anyone blame the women?" she
+countered with her lazy insolence.
+
+"Body of God!" cried the Cardinal, and laughed wholeheartedly, whilst my
+cousin scowled.  "There you have the truth, Cosimo, and the truth is better
+than proverbs."
+
+"It is unlucky to speak of the dead at table," put in Caro.
+
+"And who spoke of the dead, Messer Annibale?" quoth Leocadia.
+
+"Did not my Lord Cardinal mention Truth?" answered the brutal poet.
+
+You are a derider--a gross sinner," said the Cardinal languidly.  "Stick to
+your verses, man, and leave Truth alone."
+
+"Agreed--if your excellency will stick to Truth and quit writing verses.  I
+offer the compact in the interest of humanity, which will be the gainer."
+
+The company shook with laughter at this direct and offensive hit.  But my
+Lord Gambara seemed nowise incensed.  Indeed, I was beginning to conclude
+that the man had a sweetness and tolerance of nature that bordered on the
+saintly.
+
+He sipped his wine thoughtfully, and held it up to the light so that the
+deep ruby of it sparkled in the Venetian crystal.
+
+"You remind me that I have written a new song," said he.
+
+"Then have I sinned indeed," groaned Caro.
+
+But Gambara, disregarding the interruption, his glass still raised, his
+mild eyes upon the wine, began to recite:
+
+     "Bacchus saepe visitans
+      Mulierum genus
+      Facit eas subditas
+      Tibi, 0 tu Venus!"
+
+Without completely understanding it, yet scandalized beyond measure at as
+much as I understood, to hear such sentiments upon his priestly lips, I
+stared at him in candid horror.
+
+But he got no farther.  Caro smote the table with his fist.
+
+"When wrote you that, my lord?" he cried.
+
+"When?" quoth the Cardinal, frowning at the interruption.  "Why,
+yestereve."
+
+"Ha!"  It was something between a bark and a laugh from Messer Caro.  "In
+that case, my lord, memory usurped the place of invention.  That song was
+sung at Pavia when I was a student--which is more years ago than I care to
+think of."
+
+The Cardinal smiled upon him, unabashed.  "And what then, pray?  Can we
+avoid these things?  Why, the very Virgil whom you plagiarize so freely was
+himself a plagiarist."
+
+Now this, as you may well conceive, provoked a discussion about the board,
+in which all joined, not excepting Fifanti's lady and Donna Leocadia.
+
+I listened in some amazement and deep interest to matters that were
+entirely strange to me, to the arguing of mysteries which seemed to me--
+even from what I heard of them--to be strangely attractive.
+
+Anon Fifanti joined in the discussion, and I observed how as soon as he
+began to speak they all fell silent, all listened to him as to a master,
+what time he delivered himself of his opinions and criticisms of this
+Virgil, with a force, a lucidity and an eloquence that revealed his
+learning even to one so ignorant as myself.
+
+He was listened to with deference by all, if we except perhaps my Lord
+Gambara, who had no respect for anything and who preferred to whisper to
+Leocadia under cover of his hand, ogling her what time she simpered.  Once
+or twice Monna Giuliana flashed him an unfriendly glance, and this I
+accounted natural, deeming that she resented this lack of attention to the
+erudite dissertation of her husband.
+
+But as for the others, they were attentive, as I have said, and even Messer
+Caro, who at the time--as I gathered then--was engaged upon a translation
+of Virgil into Tuscan, and who, therefore, might be accounted something of
+an authority, held his peace and listened what time the doctor reasoned and
+discoursed.
+
+Fifanti's mean, sycophantic air fell away from him as by magic.  Warmed by
+his subject and his enthusiasm he seemed suddenly ennobled, and I found him
+less antipathic; indeed, I began to see something admirable in the man,
+some of that divine quality that only deep culture and learning can impart.
+
+I conceived that now, at last, I held the explanation of how it came to
+pass that so distinguished a company frequented his house and gathered on
+such familiar terms about his board.
+
+And I began to be less amazed at the circumstance that he should possess
+for wife so beautiful and superb a creature as Madonna Giuliana.  I thought
+that I obtained glimpses of the charm which that elderly man might be able
+to exert upon a fine and cultured young nature with aspirations for things
+above the commonplace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HUMANITIES
+
+
+As the days passed and swelled into weeks, and these, in their turn,
+accumulated into months, I grew rapidly learned in worldly matters at
+Doctor Fifanti's house.
+
+The curriculum I now pursued was so vastly different from that which my
+mother had bidden Fra Gervasio to set me, and my acquaintance with the
+profane writers advanced so swiftly once it was engaged upon, that I
+acquired knowledge as a weed grows.
+
+Fifanti flung into strange passions when he discovered the extent of my
+ignorance and the amazing circumstance that whilst Fra Gervasio had made of
+me a fluent Latin scholar, he had kept me in utter ignorance of the classic
+writers, and almost in as great an ignorance of history itself.  This the
+pedant set himself at once to redress, and amongst the earliest works he
+gave me as preparation were Latin translations of Thucydides and Herodotus
+which I devoured--especially the glowing pages of the latter--at a speed
+that alarmed my tutor.
+
+But mere studiousness was not my spur, as he imagined.  I was enthralled by
+the novelty of the matters that I read, so different from all those with
+which I had been allowed to become acquainted hitherto.
+
+There followed Tacitus, and after him Cicero and Livy, which latter two I
+found less arresting; then came Lucretius, and his De Rerum Naturae proved
+a succulent dish to my inquisitive appetite.
+
+But the cream and glory of the ancient writers I had yet to taste.  My
+first acquaintance with the poets came from the translation of Virgil upon
+which Messer Caro was at the time engaged.  He had definitely taken up his
+residence in Piacenza, whither it was said that Farnese, his master, who
+was to be made our Duke, would shortly come.  And in the interval of
+labouring for Farnese, as Caro was doing, he would toil at his translation,
+and from time to time he would bring sheaves of his manuscript to the
+doctor's house, to read what he had accomplished.
+
+He came, I remember, one languid afternoon in August, when I had been with
+Messer Fifanti for close upon three months, during which time my mind had
+gradually, yet swiftly, been opening out like a bud under the sunlight of
+much new learning.  We sat in the fine garden behind the house, on the
+lawn, in the shade of mulberry trees laden with yellow translucent fruit,
+by a pond that was all afloat with water-lilies.
+
+There was a crescent-shaped seat of hewn marble, over which Messer Gambara,
+who was with us, had thrown his scarlet cardinal's cloak, the day being
+oppressively hot.  He was as usual in plain, walking clothes, and save for
+the ring on his finger and the cross on his breast, you had never conceived
+him an ecclesiastic.  He sat near his cloak, upon the marble seat, and
+beside him sat Monna Giuliana, who was all in white save for the gold
+girdle at her waist.
+
+Caro, himself, stood to read, his bulky manuscript in his hands.  Against
+the sundial, facing the poet, leaned the tall figure of Messer Fifanti, his
+bald head uncovered and shining humidly, his eyes ever and anon stealing a
+look at his splendid wife where she sat so demurely at the prelate's side.
+
+Myself, I lay on the grass near the pond, my hand trailing in the cool
+water, and at first I was not greatly interested.  The heat of the day and
+the circumstance that we had dined, when played upon by the poet's booming
+and somewhat monotonous voice, had a lulling effect from which I was in
+danger of falling asleep.  But anon, as the narrative warmed and quickened,
+the danger was well overpast.  I was very wide-awake, my pulses throbbing,
+my imagination all on fire.  I sat up and listened with an enthralled
+attention, unconscious of everything and everybody, unconscious even of the
+very voice of the reader, intent only upon the amazing, tragic matter that
+he read.
+
+For it happened that this was the Fourth Book of the Aeneid, and the most
+lamentable, heartrending story of Dido's love for Aeneas, of his desertion
+of her, of her grief and death upon the funeral pyre.
+
+It held me spellbound.  It was more real then anything that I had ever read
+or heard; and the fate of Dido moved me as if I had known and loved her; so
+that long ere Messer Caro came to an end I was weeping freely in a most
+exquisite misery.
+
+Thereafter I was as one who has tasted strong wine and finds his thirst
+fired by it.  Within a week I had read the Aeneid through, and was reading
+it a second time.  Then came the Comedies of Terence, the Metamorphoses of
+Ovid, Martial, and the Satires of Juvenal.  And with those my
+transformation was complete.  No longer could I find satisfaction in the
+writings of the fathers of the church, or in contemplating the lives of the
+saints, after the pageantries which the eyes of my soul had looked upon in
+the profane authors.
+
+What instructions my mother supposed Fifanti to have received concerning me
+from Arcolano, I cannot think.  But certain it is that she could never have
+dreamed under what influences I was so soon to come, no more than she could
+conceive what havoc they played with all that hitherto I had learnt and
+with the resolutions that I had formed--and that she had formed for me--
+concerning the future.
+
+All this reading perturbed me very oddly, as one is perturbed who having
+long dwelt in darkness is suddenly brought into the sunlight and dazzled by
+it, so that, grown conscious of his sight, he is more effectively blinded
+than he was before.  For the process that should have been a gradual one
+from tender years was carried through in what amounted to little more than
+a few weeks.
+
+My Lord Gambara took an odd interest in me.  He was something of a
+philosopher in his trivial way; something of a student of his fellow-man;
+and he looked upon me as an odd human growth that was being subjected to an
+unusual experiment.  I think he took a certain delight in helping that
+experiment forward; and certain it is that he had more to do with the
+debauching of my mind than any other, or than any reading that I did.
+
+It was not that he told me more than elsewhere I could have learnt; it was
+the cynical manner in which he conveyed his information.  He had a way of
+telling me of monstrous things as if they were purely normal and natural to
+a properly focussed eye, and as if any monstrousness they might present to
+me were due to some distortion imparted to them solely by the imperfection
+of my intellectual vision.
+
+Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning
+Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on
+whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy of
+Parma and Piacenza.
+
+One day as we walked together in the garden--my Lord Gambara and I--I asked
+him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
+
+"His claim?" quoth he, checking, to give me a long, cool stare.  He laughed
+shortly and resumed his pacing, I keeping step with him.  "Why, is he not
+the Pope's son, and is not that claim enough?"
+
+"The Pope's son!" I exclaimed.  "But how is it possible that the Holy
+Father should have a son?"
+
+"How is it possible?" he echoed mockingly.  "Why, I will tell you, sir.
+When our present Holy Father went as Cardinal-legate to the Mark of Ancona,
+he met there a certain lady whose name was Lola, who pleased him, and who
+was pleased with him.  Alessandro Farnese was a handsome man, Ser Agostino.
+She bore him three children, of whom one is dead, another is Madonna
+Costanza, who is wed to Sforza of Santafiora, and the third--who really
+happens to have been the first-born--is Messer Pier Luigi, present Duke of
+Castro and future Duke of Piacenza."
+
+It was some time ere I could speak.
+
+"But his vows, then?" I exclaimed at last.
+
+"Ah!  His vows!" said the Cardinal-legate.  "True, there were his vows.  I
+had forgotten that.  No doubt he did the same."  And he smiled
+sardonically, sniffing at his pomander-ball.
+
+From that beginning in a fresh branch of knowledge much followed quickly.
+Under my questionings, Messer Gambara very readily made me acquainted
+through his unsparing eyes with that cesspool that was known as the Roman
+Curia.  And my horror, my disillusionment increased at every word he said.
+
+I learnt from him that Pope Paul III was no exception to the rule, no such
+scandal as I had imagined; that his own elevation to the purple was due in
+origin to the favour which his sister, the beautiful Giulia, had found in
+the eyes of the Borgia Pope, some fifty years ago.  Through him I came to
+know the Sacred College as it really was; not the very home and fount of
+Christianity, as I had deemed it, controlled and guided by men of a sublime
+saintliness of ways, but a gathering of ambitious worldlings, who had
+become so brazen in their greed of temporal power that they did not even
+trouble to cloak the sin and evil in which they lived; men in whom the
+spirit that had actuated those saints the study of whose lives had been my
+early delight, lived no more than it might live in the bosom of a harlot.
+
+I said so to him one day in a wild, furious access of boldness, in one of
+those passionate outbursts that are begotten of illusions blighted.
+
+He heard me through quite calmly, without the least trace of anger, smiling
+ever his quiet mocking smile, and plucking at his little, auburn beard.
+
+"You are wrong, I think," he said.  "Say that the Church has fallen a prey
+to self-seekers who have entered it under the cloak of the priesthood.
+What then?  In their hands the Church has been enriched.  She has gained
+power, which she must retain.  And that is to the Church's good."
+
+"And what of the scandal of it?" I stormed.
+
+"0, as to that--why, boy, have you never read Boccaccio?"
+
+"Never," said I.
+
+"Read him, then," he urged me.  "He will teach you much that you need to
+know.  And read in particular the story of Abraam, the Jew, who upon
+visiting Rome was so scandalized by the licence and luxury of the clergy
+that he straightway had himself baptized and became a Christian, accounting
+that a religion that could survive such wiles of Satan to destroy it must
+indeed be the true religion, divinely inspired."  He laughed his little
+cynical laugh to see my confusion increased by that bitter paradox.
+
+It is little wonder that I was all bewildered, that I was like some poor
+mariner upon unknown waters, without stars or compass.
+
+Thus that summer ebbed slowly, and the time of my projected minor
+ordination approached.  Messer Gambara's visits to Fifanti's grew more and
+more frequent, until they became a daily occurrence; and now my cousin
+Cosimo came oftener too.  But it was their custom to come in the forenoon,
+when I was at work with Fifanti.  And often I observed the doctor to be
+oddly preoccupied, and to spend much time in creeping to the window that
+was all wreathed in clematis, and in peeping through that purple-decked
+green curtain into the garden where his excellency and Cosimo walked with
+Monna Giuliana.
+
+When both visitors were there his anxiety seemed less.  But if only one
+were present he would give himself no peace.  And once when Messer Gambara
+and she went together within doors, he abruptly interrupted my studies,
+saying that it was enough for that day; and he went below to join them.
+
+Half a year earlier I should have had no solution for his strange
+behaviour.  But I had learnt enough of the world by now to perceive what
+maggot was stirring in that egg-shaped head.  Yet I blushed for him, and
+for his foul and unworthy suspicions.  As soon would I have suspected the
+painted Madonna from the brush of Raffaele Santi that I had seen over the
+high altar of the Church of San Sisto, as suspect the beautiful and
+noble�souled Giuliana of giving that old pedant cause for his uneasiness.
+Still, I conceived that this was the penalty that such a withered growth of
+humanity must pay for having presumed to marry a young wife.
+
+We were much together in those days, Monna Giuliana and I.  Our intimacy
+had grown over a little incident that it were well I should mention.
+
+A young painter, Gianantonio Regillo, better known to the world as Il
+Pordenone, had come to Piacenza that summer to decorate the Church of Santa
+Maria della Campagna.  He came furnished with letters to the Governor, and
+Gambara had brought him to Fifanti's villa.  From Monna Giuliana the young
+painter heard the curious story of my having been vowed prenatally to the
+cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine, and the hope that was
+entertained that I should walk in the ways of St. Augustine after whom I
+had been christened.
+
+It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a
+fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named.  And having
+seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion of
+using me as the model for the figure of the saint.  I consented, and daily
+for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the time Monna
+Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.
+
+That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there--O bitter
+irony !--you may see me to this day, as the saint in whose ways it was
+desired that I should follow.
+
+Monna Giuliana and I would linger together in talk after the painter had
+gone; and this would be at about the time that I had my first lessons of
+Curial life from my Lord Gambara.  You will remember that he mentioned
+Boccaccio to me, and I chanced to ask her was there in the library a copy
+of that author's tales.
+
+"Has that wicked priest bidden you to read them?" she inquired, 'twixt
+seriousness and mockery, her dark eyes upon me in one of those glances that
+never left me easy.
+
+I told her what had passed; and with a sigh and a comment that I would get
+an indigestion from so much mental nourishment as I was consuming, she led
+me to the little library to find the book.
+
+Messer Fifanti's was a very choice collection of works, and every one in
+manuscript; for the doctor was something of an idealist, and greatly averse
+to the printing-press and the wide dissemination of books to which it led.
+Out of his opposition to the machine grew a dislike to its productions,
+which he denounced as vulgar; and not even their comparative cheapness and
+the fact that, when all was said, he was a man of limited means, would
+induce him to harbour a single volume that was so produced.
+
+Along the shelves she sought, and finally drew down four heavy tomes.
+Turning the pages of the first, she found there, with a readiness that
+argued a good acquaintance with the work, the story of Abraam the Jew,
+which I desired to read as it had been set down.  She bade me read it
+aloud, which I did, she seated in the window, listening to me.
+
+At first I read with some constraint and shyness, but presently warming to
+my task and growing interested, I became animated and vivacious in my
+manner, so that when I ceased I saw her sitting there, her hands clasped
+about one knee, her eyes upon my face, her lips parted a little, the very
+picture of interest.
+
+And with that it happened that we established a custom, and very often,
+almost daily, after dinner, we would repair together to the library, and
+I--who hitherto had no acquaintance with any save Latin works--began to
+make and soon to widen my knowledge of our Tuscan writers.  We varied our
+reading.  We dipped into our poets.  Dante we read, and Petrarca, and both
+we loved, though better than the works of either--and this for the sake of
+the swift movement and action that is in his narrative, though his
+melodies, I realized, were not so pure--the Orlando of Ariosto.
+
+Sometimes we would be joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed very
+long.  He had an old-fashioned contempt for writings in what he called the
+"dialettale," and he loved the solemn injuvenations of the Latin tongue.
+Soon, as he listened, he would begin to yawn, and presently grunt and rise
+and depart, flinging a contemptuous word at the matter of my reading, and
+telling me at times that I might find more profitable amusement.
+
+But I persisted in it, guided ever by Fifanti's lady.  And whatever we read
+by way of divergence, ever and anon we would come back to the stilted,
+lucid, vivid pages of Boccaccio.
+
+One day I chanced upon the tragical story of "Isabetta and the Pot of
+Basil," and whilst I read I was conscious that she had moved from where she
+had been sitting and had come to stand behind my chair.  And when I reached
+the point at which the heart-broken Isabetta takes the head of her murdered
+lover to her room, a tear fell suddenly upon my hand.
+
+I stopped, and looked up at Giuliana.  She smiled at me through unshed
+tears that magnified her matchless eyes.
+
+"I will read no more," I said.  "It is too sad."
+
+"Ah, no!" she begged.  "Read on, Agostino!  I love its sadness."
+
+So I read on to the story's cruel end, and when it was done I sat quite
+still, myself a little moved by the tragedy of it, whilst Giuliana
+continued to lean against my chair.  I was moved, too, in another way;
+curiously and unaccountably; and I could scarcely have defined what it was
+that moved me.
+
+I sought to break the spell of it, and turned the pages.  "Let me read
+something else," said I.  "Something more gay, to dispel the sadness of
+this."
+
+But her hand fell suddenly upon mine, enclasping and holding it.  "Ah, no!"
+she begged me gently.  "Give me the book.  Let us read no more to-day.
+
+I was trembling under her touch--trembling, my every nerve a-quiver and my
+breath shortened--and suddenly there flashed through my mind a line of
+Dante's in the story of Paolo and Francesca:
+
+     "Quel giorno piu non vi leggemo avanti."
+
+Giuliana's words: "Let us read no more to-day"--had seemed an echo of that
+line, and the echo made me of a sudden conscious of an unsuspected
+parallel.  All at once our position seemed to me strangely similar to that
+of the ill-starred lovers of Rimini.
+
+But the next moment I was sane again.  She had withdrawn her hand, and had
+taken the volume to restore it to its shelf.
+
+Ah, no!  At Rimini there had been two fools.  Here there was but one.  Let
+me make an end of him by persuading him of his folly.
+
+Yet Giuliana did nothing to assist me in that task.  She returned from the
+book-shelf, and in passing lightly swept her fingers over my hair.
+
+"Come, Agostino; let us walk in the garden," said she.
+
+We went, my mood now overpast.  I was as sober and self-contained as was my
+habit.  And soon thereafter came my Lord Gambara--a rare thing to happen in
+the afternoon.
+
+Awhile the three of us were together in the garden, talking of trivial
+matters.  Then she fell to wrangling with him concerning something that
+Caro had written and of which she had the manuscript.  In the end she
+begged me would I go seek the writing in her chamber.  I went, and hunted
+where she had bidden me and elsewhere, and spent a good ten minutes vainly
+in the task.  Chagrined that I could not discover the thing, I went into
+the library, thinking that it might be there.
+
+Doctor Fifanti was writing busily at the table when I intruded.  He looked
+up, thrusting his horn-rimmed spectacles high upon his peaked forehead
+
+"What the devil!" quoth he very testily.  "I thought you were in the garden
+with Madonna Giuliana."
+
+"My Lord Gambara is there," said I.
+
+He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand.  "Do I not know
+that?" he roared, though I could see no reason for all this heat.  "And why
+are you not with them?"
+
+You are not to suppose that I was still the meek, sheepish lad who had come
+to Piacenza three months ago.  I had not been learning my world and
+discovering Man to no purpose all this while.
+
+"It has yet to be explained to me," said I, "under what obligation I am to
+be anywhere but where I please.  That firstly.  Secondly--but of infinitely
+lesser moment--Monna Giuliana has sent me for the manuscript of Messer
+Caro's Gigli d'Oro."
+
+I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him.  But quiet
+he became.
+
+"I...I was vexed by your interruption," he said lamely, to explain his late
+choler.  "Here is the thing.  I found it here when I came.  Messer Caro
+might discover better employment for his leisure.  But there, there"--he
+seemed in sudden haste again.  "Take it to her in God's name.  She will be
+impatient."  I thought he sneered.  "0, she will praise your diligence," he
+added, and this time I was sure that he sneered.
+
+I took it, thanked him, and left the room intrigued.  And when I rejoined
+them, and handed her the manuscript, the odd thing was that the subject of
+their discourse having meanwhile shifted, it no longer interested her, and
+she never once opened the pages she had been in such haste to have me
+procure.
+
+This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world
+
+But I was not done with riddles.  For presently out came Fifanti himself,
+looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual.  He was
+arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby slippers
+on his long, lean feet.  He was ever a man of most indifferent personal
+habits.
+
+"Ah, Astorre," his wife greeted him.  "My Lord Cardinal brings you good
+tidings."
+
+"Does he so?" quoth Fifanti, sourly as I thought; and he looked at the
+legate as though his excellency were the very reverse of a happy harbinger.
+
+"You will rejoice, I think, doctor," said the smiling prelate, "to hear
+that I have letters from my Lord Pier Luigi appointing you one of the ducal
+secretaries.  And this, I doubt not, will be followed, on his coming
+hither, by an appointment to his council.  Meanwhile, the stipend is three
+hundred ducats, and the work is light."
+
+There followed a long and baffling silence, during which the doctor grew
+first red, then pale, then red again, and Messer Gambara stood with his
+scarlet cloak sweeping about his shapely limbs, sniffing his pomander and
+smiling almost insolently into the other's face; and some of the insolence
+of his look, I thought, was reflected upon the pale, placid countenance of
+Giuliana.
+
+At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing.
+
+"It is too much for my poor deserts," he said curtly.
+
+"You are too humble," said the prelate.  "Your loyalty to the House of
+Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received..."
+
+"Hospitality!" barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so oddly
+that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks.  "You would pay for
+that?" he questioned, half mockingly.  "Oh, but for that a stipend of three
+hundred ducats is too little."
+
+And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as if
+she had been struck.
+
+But the Cardinal laughed outright.  "Come now, you use me with an amiable
+frankness," he said.  "The stipend shall be doubled when you join the
+council."
+
+"Doubled?" he said.  "Six hundred...?"  He checked.  The sum was vast.  I
+saw greed creep into his little eyes.  What had troubled him hitherto, I
+could not fathom even yet.  He washed his bony hands in the air, and looked
+at his wife again.  "It...it is a fair price, no doubt, my lord," said he,
+his tone contemptuous.
+
+"The Duke shall be informed of the value of your learning," lisped the
+Cardinal.
+
+Fifanti knit his brows.  "The value of my learning?" he echoed, as if
+slowly puzzled.  "My learning?  Oh!  Is that in question?"
+
+"Why else should we give you the appointment?" smiled the Cardinal, with a
+smile that was full of significance.
+
+"It is what the town will be asking, no doubt," said Messer Fifanti.  "I
+hope you will be able to satisfy its curiosity, my lord."
+
+And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling, as
+I could perceive.
+
+My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of Monna
+Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be hateful to
+me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already profound
+mystification.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PREUX-CHEVALIER
+
+
+In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than
+ever.  Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not a day
+passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his guidance,
+I was wrestling.
+
+And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times he
+was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of the
+serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self.  He watched her
+curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she presented a
+calm front and a patience almost saintly.  He was as a man with some mighty
+burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it or cast it off.
+
+Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a
+creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider what a
+power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to my erstwhile
+terror.  She confided in me a little in those days, but ever with a most
+saintly resignation.  She had been sold into wedlock, she admitted, with a
+man who might have been her father, and she confessed to finding her lot a
+cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who intends none the less
+to bear her cross with fortitude.
+
+And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing.  We had been reading
+together, she and I, as was become our custom.  She had fetched me a volume
+of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side on the
+marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder touching
+mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
+
+She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare
+justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was
+confined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my Lord
+Gambara.  Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday between
+Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be the fruit
+of a base and unworthy mind.
+
+I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the lines or
+the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have told you
+
+Presently she checked me.  "Leave now Panormitano," she said.  "Here is
+something else upon which you shall give me your judgment."  And she set
+before me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand, which
+was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.
+
+I read the poem.  It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a heart
+that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner seemed,
+the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me.  At my admission of its
+moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done that day in
+the library when we had read of "Isabetta and the Pot of Basil."  Her hand
+was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.
+
+"Ah, thanks, Agostino," she murmured.  "Your praise is sweet to me.  The
+verses are my own."
+
+I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her.  The
+beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my
+first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind.  In what words I should
+have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an
+interruption.
+
+Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the voice
+of Messer Fifanti.  "What do you read?"
+
+We started apart, and turned.
+
+Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we should
+not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our ears had
+been deafened for the time.  He stood there now in his untidy gown of
+black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face.  Slowly he
+put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony claw.
+
+He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his eyes
+up until they all but disappeared.
+
+Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and
+Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily in
+its russet sheath.
+
+He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.
+
+"Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?"
+quoth he.  "Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you must be
+wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor illiterate
+gibberish as this?  And what is it that you have there?" He took the book.
+"Panormitano!" he roared.  "Now, there's a fitting author for a saint in
+embryo!  There's a fine preparation for the cloister!"
+
+He turned to Giuliana.  He put forward his hand and touched her bare
+shoulder with his hideous forefinger.  She cringed under the touch as if it
+were barbed.
+
+"There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress," he
+said, with his deadly smile.
+
+"I do not," she replied indignantly.  "Agostino has a taste for letters,
+and..."
+
+"Tcha!  Tcha!" he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply.  "I had no
+thought for letters.  There is my Lord Gambara, and there is Messer Cosimo
+d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro.  There is even Pordenone, the
+painter."  His lips writhed over their names.  "You have friends enough, I
+think.  Leave, then, Ser Agostino here.  Do not dispute him with God to
+whom he has been vowed."
+
+She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall,
+and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked then to
+me.
+
+"This is too much!" she cried.
+
+"It is, madam," he snapped.  "I agree with you."  She considered him with
+eyes that held a loathing and contempt unutterable.  Then she looked at me,
+and shrugged her shoulders as who would say: "You see how I am used!"
+Lastly she turned, and took her way across the lawn towards the house.
+
+There was a little silence between us after she had gone.  I was on fire
+with indignation, and yet I could think of no words in which I might
+express it, realizing how utterly I lacked the right to be angry with a
+husband for the manner in which he chose to treat his wife.
+
+At last, pondering me very gravely, he spoke.
+
+"It were best you read no more with Madonna Giuliana," he said slowly.
+"Her tastes are not the tastes that become a man who is about to enter holy
+orders."  He closed the book, which hitherto he had held open; closed it
+with an angry snap, and held it out to me.
+
+"Restore it to its shelf," he bade me.
+
+I took it, and quite submissively I went to do his bidding.  But to gain
+the library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room.  It stood open, and
+Giuliana herself in the doorway.  We looked at each other, and seeing her
+so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forward to
+speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me.
+
+She stretched forth a hand to me.  I took it and held it tight, looking up
+into her eyes.
+
+"Dear Agostino!" she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I,
+distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for
+the first time.
+
+"Giuliana!"
+
+Having uttered it I dared not look at her.  But I stooped to kiss the hand
+which she had left in mine.  And having kissed it I started upright and
+made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and waved me
+away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and went to
+shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
+
+For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give, I
+avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were never
+once together.
+
+The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna
+sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,
+being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
+
+But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial as
+ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently
+entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
+Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and
+Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of that
+pedant.
+
+Explanation was about to be afforded me.
+
+On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was going
+afoot into the town, and solicited my escort.  It was an honour that never
+before had been offered me.  I reddened violently, but accepted it, and
+soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
+
+We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'
+Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing the
+material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that garrisoned
+Piacenza.  And presently we came upon the works of this new building, and
+stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and so pursued our
+way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune, overshadowed by
+the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace.  This was a noble building,
+rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very warlike air from the
+pointed battlements that crowned it.
+
+Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring up
+at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its
+summit.  In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of
+rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching in
+that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of the sun,
+and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies.  The murmuring crowd
+looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
+
+He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he had
+been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the odious
+sin of sacrilege.
+
+"What!" I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna
+Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
+
+It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo and
+we were returning home that I touched upon the matter.  She chid me for the
+lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable indiscretions
+but for her warning.
+
+"But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor
+wretch for sacrilege!" I cried.  "It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is
+infamous!"
+
+"Not so loud," she laughed.  "You are being stared at."  And then she
+delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry.  "If a man being a
+sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in others,
+then is he twice a sinner."
+
+"It was my Lord Gambara taught you that," said I, and involuntarily I
+sneered.
+
+She considered me with a very searching look.
+
+"Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?"
+
+"Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks to
+cloak the disorders of his life.  'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
+sequor?' is his philosophy.  If he would encage the most sacrilegious
+fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself."
+
+"You do not love him?" said she.
+
+"0--as to that--as a man he is well enough.  But as an ecclesiastic...0,
+but there!" I broke off shortly, and laughed.  "The devil take Messer
+Gambara!"
+
+She smiled.  "It is greatly to be feared that he will."
+
+But my Lord Gambara was not so lightly to be dismissed that afternoon.  As
+we were passing the Porta Fodesta, a little group of country-folk that had
+gathered there fell away before us, all eyes upon the dazzling beauty of
+Giuliana--as, indeed, had been the case ever since we had come into the
+town, so that I had been singularly and sweetly proud of being her escort.
+I had been conscious of the envious glances that many a tall fellow had
+sent after me, though, after all, theirs was but as the jealousy of Phoebus
+for Adonis.
+
+Wherever we had passed and eyes had followed us, men and women had fallen
+to whispering and pointing after us.  And so did they now, here at the
+Fodesta Gate, but with this difference, that, at last, I overheard for once
+what was said, for there was one who did not whisper.
+
+"There goes the leman of my Lord Gambara," quoth a gruff, sneering voice,
+"the light of love of the saintly legate who is starving Domenico to death
+in a cage for the sin of sacrilege."
+
+Not a doubt but that he would have added more, but that at that moment a
+woman's shrill voice drowned his utterance.  "Silence, Giuffre!" she
+admonished him fearfully.  "Silence, on your life!"
+
+I had halted in my stride, suddenly cold from head to foot, as on that day
+when I had flung Rinolfo from top to bottom of the terrace steps at
+Mondolfo.  It happened that I wore a sword for the first time in my life--a
+matter from which I gathered great satisfaction--having been adjudged
+worthy of the honour by virtue that I was to be Madonna's escort.  To the
+hilt I now set hand impetuously, and would have turned to strike that foul
+slanderer dead, but that Giuliana restrained me, a wild alarm in her eyes.
+
+"Come!" she panted in a whisper.  "Come away!"
+
+So imperious was the command that it conveyed to my mind some notion of the
+folly I should commit did I not obey it.  I saw at once that did I make an
+ensample of this scurrilous scandalmonger I should thereby render her the
+talk of that vile town.  So I went on, but very white and stiff, and
+breathing somewhat hard; for pent-up passion is an evil thing to house.
+
+Thus came we out of the town and to the shady banks of the gleaming Po.
+And then, at last, when we were quite alone, and within two hundred yards
+of Fifanti's house, I broke at last the silence.
+
+I had been thinking very busily, and the peasant's words had illumined for
+me a score of little obscure matters, had explained to me the queer
+behaviour and the odd speeches of Fifanti himself since that evening in the
+garden when the Cardinal-legate had announced to him his appointment as
+ducal secretary.  I checked now in my stride, and turned to face her.
+
+"Was it true?" I asked, rendered brutally direct by a queer pain I felt as
+a result of my thinking.
+
+She looked up into my face so sadly and wistfully that my suspicions fell
+from me upon the instant, and I reddened from shame at having harboured
+them.
+
+"Agostino!" she cried, such a poor little cry of pain that I set my teeth
+hard and bowed my head in self-contempt.
+
+Then I looked at her again.
+
+"Yet the foul suspicion of that lout is shared by your husband himself,"
+said I.
+
+"The foul suspicion--yes," she answered, her eyes downcast, her cheeks
+faintly tinted.  And then, quite suddenly, she moved forward.  "Come," she
+bade me.   "You are being foolish."
+
+"I shall be mad," said I, "ere I have done with this."  And I fell into
+step again beside her.  "If I could not avenge you there, I can avenge you
+here."  And I pointed to the house.  "I can smite this rumour at its
+foulest point."
+
+Her hand fell on my arm.  "What would you do?" she cried.
+
+"Bid your husband retract and sue to you for pardon, or else tear out his
+lying throat," I answered, for I was in a great rage by now.
+
+She stiffened suddenly.  "You go too fast, Messer Agostino," said she.
+"And you are over-eager to enter into that which does not concern you.  I
+do not know that I have given you the right to demand of my husband reason
+of the manner in which he deals with me.  It is a thing that touches only
+my husband and myself."
+
+I was abashed; I was humiliated; I was nigh to tears.  I choked it all
+down, and I strode on beside her, my rage smouldering within me.  But it
+was flaring up again by the time we reached the house with no more words
+spoken between us.  She went to her room without another glance at me, and
+I repaired straight in quest of Fifanti.
+
+I found him in the library.  He had locked himself in, as was his frequent
+habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock.  I stalked in,
+unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner.  Then I turned to him.
+
+"You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor," said I, with all
+the directness of youth and indiscretion.
+
+He stared at me as if I had struck him--as he might have stared, rather, at
+a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back for the
+child's good, or to be amused and smile.
+
+"Ah!" he said at last.  "She has been talking to you?"  And he clasped his
+hands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legs
+wide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
+
+"No," said I.  "I have been thinking."
+
+"In that case nothing will surprise me," he said in his sour, contemptuous
+manner.  "And so you have concluded...?"
+
+"That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion."
+
+"Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfort me,"
+he sneered.  "And what, pray, is this suspicion?
+
+"You suspect that...that--0 God!  I can't utter the thing."
+
+"Take courage," he mocked me.  And he thrust his head farther forward.  He
+looked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
+
+"You suspect that Messer Gambara...that Messer Gambara and Madonna...
+that..."  I clenched my hands together, and looked into his leering face.
+"You understand me well enough," I cried, almost angrily.
+
+He looked at me seriously now, a cold glitter in his small eyes.
+
+"I wonder do you understand yourself?" he asked.  "I think not.  I think
+not.  Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you a
+priest, and thus complete God's work."
+
+"You cannot move me by your taunts," I said.  You have a foul mind, Messer
+Fifanti."
+
+He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on the wooden
+floor.
+
+"Because," said he, "I suspect that Messer Gambara...that Messer Gambara
+and Madonna...that...You understand me," he mocked me, with a mimicry of my
+own confusion.  "And what affair may it be of yours whom I suspect or of
+what I suspect them where my own are concerned?"
+
+"It is my affair, as it is the affair of every man who would be accounted
+gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady from the foul
+aspersions of slander."
+
+"Knight-errantry, by the Host!" quoth he, and his brows shot up on his
+steep brow.  Then they came down again to scowl.  "No doubt, my preux-
+chevalier, you will have definite knowledge of the groundlessness of these
+same slanders," he said, moving backwards, away from me, towards the door;
+and as he moved now his feet made no sound, though I did not yet notice
+this nor, indeed, his movement at all.
+
+"Knowledge?" I roared at him.  "What knowledge can you need beyond what is
+afforded by her face?  Look in it, Messer Fifanti, if you would see
+innocence and purity and chastity!  Look in it!"
+
+"Very well," said he.  "Let us look in it."
+
+And quite suddenly he pulled the door open to disclose Giuliana standing
+there, erect but in a listening attitude.
+
+"Look in it!" he mocked me, and waved one of his bony hands towards that
+perfect countenance.
+
+There was shame and confusion in her face, and some anger.  But she turned
+without a word, and went quickly down the passage, followed by his evil,
+cackling laugh.
+
+Then he looked at me quite solemnly.  "I think," said he, "you had best get
+to your studies.  You will find more than enough to engage you there.
+Leave my affairs to me, boy."
+
+There was almost a menace in his voice, and after what had happened it was
+impossible to pursue the matter.
+
+Sheepishly, overwhelmed with confusion, I went out--a knight-errant with a
+shorn crest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MY LORD GAMBARA CLEARS THE GROUND
+
+
+I had angered her!  Worse; I had exposed her to humiliation at the hands of
+that unworthy animal who soiled her in thought with the slime of his
+suspicions.  Through me she had been put to the shameful need of listening
+at a door, and had been subjected to the ignominy of being so discovered.
+Through me she had been mocked and derided!
+
+It was all anguish to me.  For her there was no shame, no humiliation, no
+pain I would not suffer, and take joy in the suffering so that it be for
+her.  But to have submitted that sweet, angelic woman to suffering--to have
+incurred her just anger!  Woe me!
+
+I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy, feeling
+it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it her regard
+or her neglect.  To my relief she sent word that she was not well and would
+keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked his blue chin and
+gave me a sidelong glance.  We ate in silence, and when the meal was done,
+I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and went to shut myself
+up again in my room.
+
+I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir.  I went
+down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the wet
+grass that was all scintillant with dew.  On the marble bench by the pond,
+where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and there was
+I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself.
+
+She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I had
+no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled me out
+of my musings.
+
+"Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?" quoth she.
+
+I turned to meet her laughing eyes.  "You...you can forgive me?" I faltered
+foolishly.
+
+She pouted tenderly.  "Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly out
+of love for me?"
+
+"It was, it was..." I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling
+myself growing red under her lazy glance.
+
+"I know it was," she answered.  She set her elbows on the seat's tall back
+until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow.  "And should I bear you a
+resentment, then?  My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel?  Am I but a
+cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband?  0 God!  To have
+been mated to that withered pedant!  To have been sacrificed, to have been
+sold into such bondage!  Me miserable!"
+
+"Giuliana!" I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself.
+
+"Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?"
+
+"Hush!" I implored her.  "What are you saying?"
+
+But though I begged her to be silent, my soul was avid for more such words
+from her--from her, the most perfect and beautiful of women.
+
+"Why should I not?" said she.  "Is truth ever to be stifled?  Ever?"
+
+I was mad, I know--quite mad.  Her words had made me so.  And when, to ask
+me that insistent question, she brought her face still nearer, I flung down
+the reins of my unreason and let it ride amain upon its desperate, reckless
+course.  In short, I too leaned forward, I leaned forward, and I kissed her
+full upon those scarlet, parted lips.
+
+I kissed her, and fell back with a cry that was of anguish almost--so
+poignantly had the sweet, fierce pain of that kiss run through my every
+fibre.  And as I cried out, so too did she, stepping back, her hands
+suddenly to her face.  But the next moment she was peering up at the
+windows of the house--those inscrutable eyes that looked upon our deed;
+that looked and of which it was impossible to discern how much they might
+have seen.
+
+"If he should have seen us!" was her cry; and it moved me unpleasantly that
+such should have been the first thought my kiss inspired in her.  "If he
+should have seen us!  Gesu!  I have enough to bear already!"
+
+"I care not," said I.  "Let him see.  I am not Messer Gambara.  No man
+shall put an insult upon you on my account, and live."
+
+I was become the very ranting, roaring, fire-breathing type of lover who
+will slaughter a whole world to do pleasure to his mistress or to spare her
+pain--I--I--I, Agostino d'Anguissola--who was to be ordained next month and
+walk in the ways of St. Augustine!
+
+Laugh as you read--for very pity, laugh!
+
+"Nay, nay," she reassured herself.  "He will be still abed.  He was snoring
+when I left."  And she dismissed her fears, and looked at me again, and
+returned to the matter of that kiss.
+
+"What have you done to me, Agostino?"
+
+I dropped my glance before her languid eyes.  "What I have done to no other
+woman yet," I answered, a certain gloom creeping over the exultation that
+still thrilled me.  "0 Giuliana, what have you done to me?  You have
+bewitched me; You have made me mad!"  And I set my elbows on my knees and
+took my head in my hands, and sat there, overwhelmed now by the full
+consciousness of the irrevocable thing that I had done, a thing that must
+brand my soul for ever, so it seemed.
+
+To have kissed a maid would have been ill enough for one whose aims were
+mine.  But to kiss a wife, to become a cicisbeo!  The thing assumed in my
+mind proportions foolishly, extravagantly beyond its evil reality.
+
+"You are cruel, Agostino," she whispered behind me.  She had come to lean
+again upon the back of the bench.  "Am I alone to blame?  Can the iron
+withstand the lodestone?  Can the rain help falling upon the earth?  Can
+the stream flow other than downhill?"  She sighed.  "Woe me!  It is I who
+should be angered that you have made free of my lips.  And yet I am here,
+wooing you to forgive me for the sin that is your own."
+
+I cried out at that and turned to her again, and I was very white, I know.
+
+"You tempted me!" was my coward's cry.
+
+"So said Adam once.  Yet God thought otherwise, for Adam was as fully
+punished as was Eve."  She smiled wistfully into my eyes, and my senses
+reeled again.  And then old Busio, the servant, came suddenly forth from
+the house upon some domestic errand to Giuliana, and thus was that
+situation mercifully brought to an end.
+
+For the rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning, reciting
+to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in memory the vision
+of her every look.  And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti when I
+came to my studies with him later.  He grew more peevish with me than was
+habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the wisdom of
+those who had determined upon a claustral life for me, admitting that I
+knew enough Latin to enable me to celebrate as well as another without too
+clear a knowledge of the meaning of what I pattered.  All of which was
+grossly untrue, for, as none knew better than himself, the fluency of my
+Latin was above the common wont of students.  When I told him so, he
+delivered himself of his opinion upon the common wont of students with all
+the sourness of his crabbed nature.
+
+"I'll write an ode for you upon any subject that you may set me," I
+challenged him.
+
+"Then write one upon impudence," said he.  "It is a subject you should
+understand."  And upon that he got up and flung out of the room in a pet
+before I could think of an answer.
+
+Left alone, I began an ode which should prove to him his lack of justice.
+But I got no further than two lines of it.  Then for a spell I sat biting
+my quill, my mind and the eyes of my soul full of Giuliana.
+
+Presently I began to write again.  It was not an ode, but a prayer, oddly
+profane--and it was in Italian, in the "dialettale" that provoked Fifanti's
+sneers.  How it ran I have forgotten these many years.  But I recall that
+in it I likened myself to a sailor navigating shoals and besought the
+pharos of Giuliana's eyes to bring me safely through, besought her to
+anoint me with her glance and so hearten me to brave the dangers of that
+procellous sea.
+
+I read it first with satisfaction, then with dismay as I realized to the
+full its amorous meaning.  Lastly I tore it up and went below to dine.
+
+We were still at table when my Lord Gambara arrived.  He came on horseback
+attended by two grooms whom he left to await him.  He was all in black
+velvet, I remember, even to his thigh-boots which were laced up the sides
+with gold, and on his breast gleamed a fine medallion of diamonds.  Of the
+prelate there was about him, as usual, nothing but the scarlet cloak and
+the sapphire ring.
+
+Fifanti rose and set a chair for him, smiling a crooked smile that held
+more hostility than welcome.  None the less did his excellency pay Madonna
+Giuliana a thousand compliments as he took his seat, supremely calm and
+easy in his manner.  I watched him closely, and I watched Giuliana, a queer
+fresh uneasiness pervading me.
+
+The talk was trivial and chiefly concerned with the progress of the
+barracks the legate was building and the fine new road from the middle of
+the city to the Church of Santa Chiara, which he intended should be called
+the Via Gambara, but which, despite his intentions, is known to-day as the
+Stradone Farnese.
+
+Presently my cousin arrived, full-armed and very martial by contrast with
+the velvety Cardinal.  He frowned to see Messer Gambara, then effaced the
+frown and smiled as, one by one, he greeted us.  Last of all he turned to
+me.
+
+"And how fares his saintliness?" quoth he.
+
+"Indeed, none too saintly," said I, speaking my	thoughts aloud.
+
+He laughed.  "Why, then, the sooner we are in orders, the sooner shall we
+be on the road to mending that.  Is	it not so, Messer Fifanti?
+
+"His ordination will profit you, I nothing doubt," said Fifanti, with his
+habitual discourtesy and acidity.  "So you do well to urge it."
+
+The answer put my cousin entirely out of countenance a moment.  It was a
+blunt way of reminding me that in this Cosimo I saw one who followed after
+me in the heirship to Mondolfo, and in whose interests it was that I should
+don the conventual scapulary.
+
+I looked at Cosimo's haughty face and cruel mouth, and conjectured in that
+hour whether I should have found him so very civil and pleasant a cousin
+had things been other than they were.
+
+0, a very serpent was Messer Fifanti; and I have since wondered whether of
+intent he sought to sow in my heart hatred of my guelphic cousin, that he
+might make of me a tool for his own service--as you shall come to
+understand.
+
+Meanwhile, Cosimo, having recovered, waved aside the imputation, and smiled
+easily.
+
+"Nay, there you wrong me.  The Anguissola lose more than I shall gain by
+Agostino's renunciation of the world.  And I am sorry for it.  You believe
+me, cousin?"
+
+I answered his courteous speech as it deserved, in very courteous terms.
+This set a pleasanter humour upon all.  Yet some restraint abode.  Each
+sat, it seemed, as a man upon his guard.  My cousin watched Gambara's every
+look whenever the latter turned to speak to Giuliana; the Cardinal-legate
+did the like by him; and Messer Fifanti watched them both.
+
+And, meantime, Giuliana sat there, listening now to one, now to the other,
+her lazy smile parting those scarlet lips--those lips that I had kissed
+that morning--I, whom no one thought of watching!
+
+And soon came Messer Annibale Caro, with lines from the last pages of his
+translation oozing from him.  And when presently Giuliana smote her hands
+together in ecstatic pleasure at one of those same lines and bade him
+repeat it to her, he swore roundly by all the gods that are mentioned in
+Virgil that he would dedicate the work to her upon its completion.
+
+At this the surliness became general once more and my Lord Gambara ventured
+the opinion--and there was a note of promise, almost of threat, in his
+sleek tones-- that the Duke would shortly be needing Messer Caro's presence
+in Parma; whereupon Messer Caro cursed the Duke roundly and with all a
+poet's volubility of invective.
+
+They stayed late, each intent, no doubt, upon outstaying the others.  But
+since none would give way they were forced in the end to depart together.
+
+And whilst Messer Fifanti, as became a host, was seeing them to their
+horses, I was left alone with Giuliana.
+
+"Why do you suffer those men?" I asked her bluntly.  Her delicate brows
+were raised in surprise.  "Why, what now?  They are very pleasant
+gentlemen, Agostino."
+
+"Too pleasant," said I, and rising I crossed to the window whence I could
+watch them getting to horse, all save Caro, who had come afoot.  "Too
+pleasant by much.  That prelate out of Hell, now..."
+
+"Sh!" she hissed at me, smiling, her hand raised.  "Should he hear you, he
+might send you to the cage for sacrilege.  0 Agostino!" she cried, and the
+smiles all vanished from her face.  "Will you grow cruel and suspicious,
+too?"
+
+I was disarmed.  I realized my meanness and unworthiness.
+
+"Have patience with me," I implored her.  "I...I am not myself to-day." I
+sighed ponderously, and fell silent as I watched them ride away.  Yet I
+hated them all; and most of all I hated the dainty, perfumed, golden-headed
+Cardinal-legate.
+
+He came again upon the morrow, and we learnt from the news of which he was
+the bearer that he had carried out his threat concerning Messer Caro.  The
+poet was on his way to Parma, to Duke Pier Luigi, dispatched thither on a
+mission of importance by the Cardinal.  He spoke, too, of sending my cousin
+to Perugia, where a strong hand was needed, as the town showed signs of
+mutiny against the authority of the Holy See.
+
+When he had departed, Messer Fifanti permitted himself one of his bitter
+insinuations.
+
+"He desires a clear field," he said, smiling his cold smile upon Giuliana.
+"It but remains for him to discover that his Duke has need of me as well."
+
+He spoke of it as a possible contingency, but sarcastically, as men speak
+of things too remote to be seriously considered.  He was to remember his
+words two days later when the very thing came to pass.
+
+We were at breakfast when the blow fell.
+
+There came a clatter of hooves under our windows, which stood open to the
+tepid September morning, and soon there was old Busio ushering in an
+officer of the Pontificals with a parchment tied in scarlet silk and sealed
+with the arms of Piacenza.
+
+Messer Fifanti took the package and weighed it in his hand, frowning.
+Perhaps already some foreboding of the nature of its contents was in his
+mind.  Meanwhile, Giuliana poured wine for the officer, and Busio bore him
+the cup upon a salver.
+
+Fifanti ripped away silk and seals, and set himself to read.  I can see him
+now, standing near the window to which he had moved to gain a better light,
+the parchment under his very nose, his short-sighted eyes screwed up as he
+acquainted himself with the letter's contents.  Then I saw him turn a
+sickly leaden hue.  He stared at the officer a moment and then at Giuliana.
+But I do not think that he saw either of them.  His look was the blank look
+of one whose thoughts are very distant.
+
+He thrust his hands behind him, and with head forward, in that curious
+attitude so reminiscent of a bird of prey, he stepped slowly back to his
+place at the table-head.  Slowly his cheeks resumed their normal tint.
+
+"Very well, sir," he said, addressing the officer.  "Inform his excellency
+that I shall obey the summons of the Duke's magnificence without delay."
+
+The officer bowed to Giuliana, took his leave, and went, old Busio
+escorting him.
+
+"A summons from the Duke?" cried Giuliana, and then the storm broke
+
+"Ay," he answered, grimly quiet, "a summons from the Duke."  And he tossed
+it across the table to her.
+
+I saw that fateful document float an instant in the air, and then, thrown
+out of poise by the blob of wax, swoop slanting to her lap.
+
+"It will come no doubt as a surprise to you," he growled; and upon that his
+hard-held passion burst all bonds that he could impose upon it.  His great
+bony fist crashed down upon the board and swept a precious Venetian beaker
+to the ground, where it burst into a thousand atoms, spreading red wine
+like a bloodstain upon the floor.
+
+"Said I not that this rascal Cardinal would make a clear field for himself?
+Said I not so?"  He laughed shrill and fiercely.  "He would send your
+husband packing as he has sent his other rivals.  0, there is a stipend
+waiting--a stipend of three hundred ducats yearly that shall be made into
+six hundred presently, and all for my complaisance, all that I may be a
+joyous and content cornuto!"
+
+He strode to the window cursing horribly, whilst Giuliana sat white of face
+with lips compressed and heaving bosom, her eyes upon her plate.
+
+"My Lord Cardinal and his Duke may take themselves together to Hell ere I
+obey the summons that the one has sent me at the desire of the other.  Here
+I stay to guard what is my own."
+
+"You are a fool," said Giuliana at length, "and a knave, too, for you
+insult me without cause."
+
+"Without cause?  0, without cause, eh?  By the Host!  Yet you would not
+have me stay?"
+
+"I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey the
+Duke's magnificence," said she.
+
+"Gaoled?" quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of
+his passion.  "Caged, perhaps--to die of hunger and thirst and exposure,
+like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last, because he
+dared to speak the truth.  Gesu!" he groaned.  "0, miserable me!"  And he
+sank into a chair.
+
+But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving
+fiercely.  "By the Eyes of God!  They shall have cause to cage me.  If I am
+to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns.  I'll gore their
+vitals.  O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you
+should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti."
+
+It was too much.  I leapt to my feet.
+
+"Messer Fifanti," I blazed at him.  "I'll not remain to hear such words
+addressed to this sweet lady."
+
+"Ah, yes," he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike me.
+"I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in embryo!  You
+will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?"  And he strode, mouthing, to
+the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the wall.  "This is
+your remedy.  Get you hence!  Go!  What passes here concerns you not.  Go!"
+he roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific.
+
+I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly invited
+her to tell me how she would have me act.
+
+"Indeed, you had best go, Agostino," she answered sadly.  "I shall bear his
+insults easier if there be no witness.  Yes, go."
+
+"Since it is your wish, Madonna," I bowed to her, and very erect, very
+defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out.  I heard
+the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon Busio, who
+was wringing his hand and looking very white.  He ran to me.
+
+"He will murder her, Messer Agostino," moaned the old man.  "He can be a
+devil in his anger."
+
+"He is a devil always, in anger and out of it," said I.  "He needs an
+exorcist.  It is a task that I should relish.  I'd beat the devils out of
+him, Busio, and she would let me.  Meanwhile, stay we here, and if she
+needs our help, it shall be hers."
+
+I dropped on to the carved settle that stood there, old Busio standing at
+my elbow, more tranquil now that there was help at hand for Madonna in case
+of need.  And through the door came the sound of his storming, and
+presently the crash of more broken glassware, as once more he thumped the
+table.  For well-high half an hour his fury lasted, and it was seldom that
+her voice was interposed.  Once we heard her laugh, cold and cutting as a
+sword's edge, and I shivered at the sound, for it was not good to hear.
+
+At last the door was opened and he came forth.  His face was inflamed, his
+eyes wild and blood-injected.  He paused for a moment on the threshold, but
+I do not think that he noticed us at first.  He looked back at her over his
+shoulder, still sitting at table, the outline of her white-gowned body
+sharply defined against the deep blue tapestry of the wall behind her.
+
+"You are warned," said he.  "Do you heed the warning!"  And he came
+forward.
+
+Perceiving me at last where I sat, he bared his broken teeth in a snarling
+smile.  But it was to Busio that he spoke.  "Have my mule saddled for me in
+an hour," he said, and passed on and up the stairs to make his
+preparations.  It seemed, therefore, that she had conquered his suspicions.
+
+I went in to offer her comfort, for she was weeping and all shaken by that
+cruel encounter.  But she waved me away.
+
+"Not now, Agostino.  Not now," she implored me.  "Leave me to myself, my
+friend."
+
+I had not been her friend had I not obeyed her without question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PABULUM ACHERONTIS
+
+
+It was late that afternoon when Astorre Fifanti set out.  He addressed a
+few brief words to me, informing me that he should return within four days,
+betide what might, setting me tasks upon which I was meanwhile to work, and
+bidding me keep the house and be circumspect during his absence.
+
+From the window of my room I saw the doctor get astride his mule.  He was
+girt with a big sword, but he still wore his long, absurd and shabby gown
+and his loose, ill-fitting shoes, so that it was very likely that the
+stirrup-leathers would engage his thoughts ere he had ridden far.
+
+I saw him dig his heels into the beast's sides and go ambling down the
+little avenue and out at the gate.  In the road he drew rein, and stood in
+talk some moments with a lad who idled there, a lad whom he was wont to
+employ upon odd tasks about the garden and elsewhere.
+
+This, Madonna also saw, for she was watching his departure from the window
+of a room below.  That she attached more importance to that little
+circumstance than did I, I was to learn much later.
+
+At last he pushed on, and I watched him as he dwindled down the long grey
+road that wound along the river-side until in the end he was lost to view--
+for all time, I hoped; and well had it been for me had my idle hope been
+realized.
+
+I supped alone that night with no other company than Busio's, who
+ministered to my needs.
+
+Madonna sent word that she would keep her chamber.  When I had supped and
+after night had fallen I went upstairs to the library, and, shutting myself
+in, I attempted to read, lighted by the three beaks of the tall brass lamp
+that stood upon the table.  Being plagued by moths, I drew the curtains
+close across the open window, and settled down to wrestle with the opening
+lines of the [Title in Greek] of Aeschylus.
+
+But my thoughts wandered from the doings of the son of Iapetus, until at
+last I flung down the book and sat back in my chair all lost in thought, in
+doubt, and in conjecture.  I became seriously introspective.  I made an
+examination not only of conscience, but of heart and mind, and I found that
+I had gone woefully astray from the path that had been prepared for me.
+Very late I sat there and sought to determine upon what I should do.
+
+Suddenly, like a manna to my starving soul, came the memory of the last
+talk I had with Fra Gervasio and the solemn warning he had given me.  That
+memory inspired me rightly.  To-morrow--despite Messer Fifanti's orders--I
+would take horse and ride to Mondolfo, there to confess myself to Fra
+Gervasio and to be guided by his counsel.  My mother's vows concerning me I
+saw in their true light.  They were not binding upon me; indeed, I should
+be doing a hideous wrong were I to follow them against my inclinations.  I
+must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had vowed or ever I was
+born, however much she might account that it would be no more than filial
+piety so to do.
+
+I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that mind of
+mine to stray thereafter as it listed.  It took to thoughts of Giuliana--
+Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still sought to
+conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering.  Better a thousand
+times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it boldly.  Thus
+should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning clear of all
+the horror that lay before me.
+
+That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed strength,
+I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of all--was the fault
+of the outrageous rearing that was mine.  At Mondolfo they had so nurtured
+me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of the world that I was
+grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the Devil's mouth.  The
+things to whose temptation usage would have rendered me in some degree
+immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored as had I.
+
+Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
+riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in which
+the Devil has the cunning to array it.
+
+And yet to pretend that I was entirely innocent of where I stood and in
+what perils were to play the hypocrite.  Largely I knew; just as I knew
+that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight.  And
+to�morrow I would go.  That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile,
+turned down.  And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of
+this hunger that was upon me.
+
+And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the door
+was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me.  She
+detached from the black background of the passage, and the light of my
+three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there was a
+luminous nimbus all about her head.  For a moment this gave colour to my
+fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness of my
+thoughts.  The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was almost
+diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful.  Only in the
+vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.
+
+I stared at her.  "Giuliana!" I murmured.
+
+"Why do you sit so late?" she asked me, and closed the door as she spoke.
+
+"I have been thinking, Giuliana," I answered wearily, and I passed a hand
+over my brow to find it moist and clammy.  "To-morrow I go hence."
+
+She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her
+breast.  "You go hence?" she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.
+"Hence?  Whither?"
+
+"Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end."
+
+She came slowly towards me.  "And...and then?" she asked.
+
+"And then?  I do not know.  What God wills.  But the scapulary is not for
+me.  I am unworthy.  I have no call.  This I now know.  And sooner than be
+such a priest as Messer Gambara--of whom there are too many in the Church
+to-day--I will find some other way of serving God."
+
+"Since...since when have you thought thus?"
+
+"Since this morning, when I kissed you," I answered fiercely.
+
+She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to
+me, inviting the clasp of mine.  "But if this is so, why leave us?"
+
+"Because I am afraid," I answered.  "Because...O God!  Giuliana, do you not
+see?"  And I sank my head into my hands.
+
+Steps shuffled along the corridor.  I looked up sharply.  She set a finger
+to her lips.  There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us.
+
+"Madonna," he announced, "my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks for
+you."
+
+I started up as if I had been stung.  So!  At this hour!  Then Messer
+Fifanti's suspicions did not entirely lack for grounds.
+
+Giuliana flashed me a glance ere she made answer.
+
+"You will tell my Lord Gambara that I have retired for the night and
+that...But stay!"  She caught up a quill and dipped it in the ink-horn,
+drew paper to herself, and swiftly wrote three lines; then dusted it with
+sand, and proffered that brief epistle to the servant.
+
+"Give this to my lord."
+
+Busio took the note, bowed, and departed.
+
+After the door had closed a silence followed, in which I paced the room in
+long strides, aflame now with the all-consuming fire of jealousy.  I do
+believe that Satan had set all the legions of hell to achieve my overthrow
+that night.  Naught more had been needed to undo me than this spur of
+jealousy.  It brought me now to her side.  I stood over her, looking down
+at her between tenderness and fierceness, she returning my glance with such
+a look as may haunt the eyes of sacrificial victims.
+
+"Why dared he come?" I asked.
+
+"Perhaps...perhaps some affair connected with Astorre..." she faltered.
+
+I sneered.  "That would be natural seeing that he has sent Astorre to
+Parma."
+
+"If there was aught else, I am no party to it," she assured me.
+
+How could I do other than believe her?  How could I gauge the turpitude of
+that beauty's mind--I, all unversed in the wiles that Satan teaches women?
+How could I have guessed that when she saw Fifanti speak to that lad at the
+gate that afternoon she had feared that he had set a spy upon the house,
+and that fearing this she had bidden the Cardinal begone?  I knew it later.
+But not then.
+
+"Will you swear that it is as you say?" I asked her, white with passion.
+
+As I have said, I was standing over her and very close.  Her answer now was
+suddenly to rise.  Like a snake came she gliding upwards into my arms until
+she lay against my breast, her face upturned, her eyes languidly veiled,
+her lips a-pout.
+
+"Can you do me so great a wrong, thinking you love me, knowing that I love
+you?" she asked me.
+
+For an instant we swayed together in that sweetly hideous embrace.  I was
+as a man sapped of all strength by some portentous struggle.  I trembled
+from head to foot.  I cried out once--a despairing prayer for help, I think
+it was--and then I seemed to plunge headlong down through an immensity of
+space until my lips found hers.  The ecstasy, the living fire, the anguish,
+and the torture of it have left their indelible scars upon my memory.  Even
+as I write the cruelly sweet poignancy of that moment is with me again--
+though very hateful now.
+
+Thus I, blindly and recklessly, under the sway and thrall of that terrific
+and overpowering temptation.  And then there leapt in my mind a glimmer of
+returning consciousness: a glimmer that grew rapidly to be a blazing light
+in which I saw revealed the hideousness of the thing I did.  I tore myself
+away from her in that second of revulsion and hurled her from me, fiercely
+and violently, so that, staggering to the seat from which she had risen,
+she fell into it rather than sat down.
+
+And whilst, breathless with parted lips and galloping bosom, she observed
+me, something near akin to terror in her eyes, I stamped about that room
+and raved and heaped abuse and recriminations upon myself, ending by going
+down upon my knees to her, imploring her forgiveness for the thing I had
+done--believing like a fatuous fool that it was all my doing--and imploring
+her still more passionately to leave me and to go.
+
+She set a trembling hand upon my head; she took my chin in the other, and
+raised my face until she could look into it.
+
+"If it be your will--if it will bring you peace and happiness, I will leave
+you now and never see you more.  But are you not deluded, my Agostino?"
+
+And then, as if her self-control gave way, she fell to weeping.
+
+"And what of me if you go?  What of me wedded to that monster, to that
+cruel and inhuman pedant who tortures and insults me as you have seen?"
+
+"Beloved, will another wrong cure the wrong of that?" I pleaded.  "0, if
+you love me, go--go, leave me.  It is too late--too late!"
+
+I drew away from her touch, and crossed the room to fling myself upon the
+window-seat.  For a space we sat apart thus, panting like wrestlers who
+have flung away from each other.  At length--"Listen, Giuliana," I said
+more calmly.  "Were I to heed you, were I to obey my own desires, I should
+bid you come away with me from this to-morrow."
+
+"If you but would!" she sighed.  "You would be taking me out of hell."
+
+"Into another worse," I countered swiftly.  "I should do you such a wrong
+as naught could ever right again."
+
+She looked at me for a spell in silence.  Her back was to the light and her
+face in shadow, so that I could not read what passed there.  Then, very
+slowly, like one utterly weary, she got to her feet.
+
+"I will do your will, beloved; but I do it not for the wrong that I should
+suffer--for that I should count no wrong--but for the wrong that I should
+be doing you."
+
+She paused as if for an answer.  I had none for her.  I raised my arms,
+then let them fall again, and bowed my head.  I heard the gentle rustle of
+her robe, and I looked up to see her staggering towards the door, her arms
+in front of her like one who is blind.  She reached it, pulled it open, and
+from the threshold gave me one last ineffable look of her great eyes, heavy
+now with tears.  Then the door closed again, and I was alone.
+
+From my heart there rose a great surge of thankfulness.  I fell upon my
+knees and prayed.  For an hour at least I must have knelt there, seeking
+grace and strength; and comforted at last, my calm restored, I rose, and
+went to the window.  I drew back the curtains, and leaned out to breathe
+the physical calm of that tepid September night.
+
+And presently out of the gloom a great grey shape came winging towards the
+window, the heavy pinions moving ponderously with their uncanny sough.  It
+was an owl attracted by the light.  Before that bird of evil omen, that
+harbinger of death, I drew back and crossed myself.  I had a sight of its
+sphinx-like face and round, impassive eyes ere it circled to melt again
+into the darkness, startled by any sudden movement.  I closed the window
+and left the room.
+
+Very softly I crept down the passage towards my chamber, leaving the light
+burning in the library, for it was not my habit to extinguish it, and I
+gave no thought to the lateness of the hour.
+
+Midway down the passage I halted.  I was level with Giuliana's door, and
+from under it there came a slender blade of light.  But it was not this
+that checked me.  She was singing, Such a pitiful little heartbroken song
+it was:
+
+     "Amor mi muojo; mi muojo amore mio!"
+
+ran its last line.
+
+I leaned against the wall, and a sob broke from me.  Then, in an instant,
+the passage was flooded with light, and in the open doorway Giuliana stood
+all white before me, her arms held out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE IRON GIRDLE
+
+
+From the distance, drawing rapidly nearer and ringing sharply in the
+stillness of the night, came the clatter of a mule's hooves.
+
+But, though heard, it was scarcely heard consciously, and it certainly went
+unheeded until it was beneath the window and ceasing at the door.
+
+Giuliana's fingers locked themselves upon my arm in a grip of fear.
+
+"Who comes?" she asked, below her breath, fearfully.  I sprang from the bed
+and crouched, listening, by the window, and so lost precious time.
+
+Out of the darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now and
+trembling.
+
+"It will be Astorre," she said, with conviction.  "At this hour it can be
+none else.  I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gate this
+afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him wherever he was
+lurking, did the need arise."
+
+"But how should the boy know...?" I began, when she interrupted me almost
+impatiently.
+
+"The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up.  He waited for no more, but went at
+once to warn Astorre.  He has been long in coming," she added in the tone
+of one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thing that
+is happening.  And then, suddenly and very urgently, "Go, go--go quickly!"
+she bade me.
+
+As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:
+
+"Why does he not knock?  For what does he wait?"  Immediately, from the
+stairs, came a terrific answer to her question--the unmistakable, slip-
+slopping footstep of the doctor.
+
+I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move.  How he had entered I
+could not guess, nor did I ever discover.  Sufficient was the awful fact
+that he was in.
+
+I was ice-cold from head to foot.  Then I was all on fire and groping
+forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the very
+steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
+
+At last I found the door and wrenched it open.  I stayed to close it after
+me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of the light
+Fifanti carried.  A second I stood there hesitating which way to turn.  My
+first thought was to gain my own chamber.  But to attempt it were assuredly
+to run into his arms.  So I turned, and went as swiftly and stealthily as
+possible towards the library.
+
+I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
+sight of me before I had closed the door.
+
+I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting, and
+trembling.  For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a glimpse
+of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
+
+I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
+haste.  In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other.  His
+face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone yellow.  The
+fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound between a roar and a
+snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping down the passage.
+
+I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to seat myself at the table, a book
+before me, and feigning slumber, present the appearance of one who had been
+overcome by weariness at his labours.  But now all thought of that was at
+an end.  I had been seen, and that I fled was all too apparent.  So that in
+every way I was betrayed.
+
+The thing I did, I did upon instinct rather than reason; and this again was
+not well done.  I slammed the door, and turned the key, placing at least
+that poor barrier between myself and the man I had so deeply wronged, the
+man whom I had given the right to slay me.  A second later the door shook
+as if a hurricane had smitten it.  He had seized the handle, and he was
+pulling at it frenziedly with a maniacal strength.
+
+"Open!" he thundered, and fell to snarling and whimpering horribly.
+"Open!"
+
+Then, quite abruptly he became oddly calm.  It was as if his rage grew
+coldly purposeful; and the next words he uttered acted upon me as a dagger-
+prod, and reawakened my mind from its momentary stupefaction.
+
+"Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my Lord
+Gambara?" quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
+
+My Lord Gambara!  He mistook me for the Legate!  In an instant I saw the
+reason of this.  It was as Giuliana had conceived.  The boy had run to warn
+him wherever he was--at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon the road to
+Parma.  And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had gone to
+Fifanti's house.  The boy had never waited to see the Legate come forth
+again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was Gambara
+whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had the right to do.
+
+When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lain
+between us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom he
+expected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled before
+him.
+
+There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed.  For
+no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme how I might
+profit by it.  Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place if the thing
+could be contrived.  If not in fact, at least in intent, the Cardinal-
+legate had certainly sinned.  If he was not in my place now, it was through
+the too great good fortune that attended him.  Besides, Gambara would be in
+better case to protect himself from the consequences and from Fifanti's
+anger.
+
+Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window.  If I
+could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my own
+chamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at that
+door.  Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, as
+he mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
+
+"You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough.  You would
+plant horns upon my head.  Well, well!  Do not complain if you are gored by
+them."
+
+Then he laughed hideously.  "This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a fool.
+He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit my Lord
+Cardinal's convenience.  But you should have bethought you that suspicious
+husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they remain."
+
+Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door was shaken.
+
+"Will you open, then, or must I break down the door!  There is no barrier
+in the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you.  I
+have the right to kill you by every law of God and man.  Shall I forgo that
+right?"  He laughed snarlingly.
+
+"Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have given
+you--and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!" he mocked.  "That
+was the price, my lord, of my hospitality--which was to include my wife's
+harlotry.  Three hundred ducats!  Ha! ha!  Three hundred thousand million
+years in Hell!  That is the price, my lord--the price that you shall pay,
+for I present the reckoning and enforce it.  You shall be shriven in iron--
+you and your wanton after you.
+
+"Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for having sent
+a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it?  Shall I?
+Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledge
+inform me."
+
+I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomous mockery.
+But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open.  I peered down into the
+darkness and hesitated.  The wall was creeper-clad to the window's height;
+but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis would never bear me.  I
+hesitated.  Then I resolved to jump.  It was but little more than some
+twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to daunt an active lad of
+my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below.  It should have been
+done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitation was my ruin.
+
+Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, after all,
+his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like an
+infuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater than
+his usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
+
+Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at me,
+too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
+
+When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was overwhelming.
+
+"You!" he gasped, and then his voice mounting--"You dog!" he screamed.  "So
+it was you!  You!"
+
+He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with
+horrid malice.  He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise.  "You!" he
+repeated.  "Blind fool that I have been!  You!  The walker in the ways of
+St. Augustine--in his early ways, I think.  You saint in embryo, you
+postulant for holy orders!  You shall be ordained this night--with this!"
+And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down
+the livid blade.
+
+"I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!"  And thereupon he leapt at me.
+
+I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden
+activity.  As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of
+Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
+
+He came after me, snarling.  I seized a stool and hurled it at him.  He
+avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement
+that was still closed.
+
+And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the
+door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
+
+We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber between
+us, both of us breathing hard.
+
+Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; for it was
+plain that he meant to have my life.  By a great ill-chance it happened
+that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as Giuliana's
+escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner where I had set
+it down.  Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti, never suspecting my
+quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand, did nothing to prevent
+my reaching it.
+
+Seeing me armed, he laughed.  "Ho, ho!  The saint-at-arms!" he mocked.
+"You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!"  And he advanced upon
+me in long stealthy strides.  The width of the table was between us, and he
+smote at me across it.  I parried, and cut back at him, for being armed
+now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child.  Little he
+knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thing which once
+learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make us slow.
+
+He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke.  And now, I
+can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there was no
+intent.  It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening.  I
+had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what they have
+been taught.
+
+To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard of Marozzo's
+which is known as the iron girdle.  I parried and on the stroke I lunged,
+and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank the half of my
+iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that the thing was
+possible.
+
+I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of his face
+become one of intense astonishment.
+
+He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from his one
+hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, still looking
+at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on to my rigidly
+held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons.  For a moment
+he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mine and the table
+against which his weight was leaning.  Then I withdrew the blade, and in
+the same movement flung the weapon from me.  Before the sword had rattled
+to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heap beyond the table, so that
+I could see no more than the yellow, egg-like top of his bald head.
+
+Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity and a
+queer awe.  Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I had
+done.  It might be that I had killed Fifanti.  It might be.  And slowly,
+gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of its horrid
+meaning.
+
+Then from the passage came a stifled scream, and Giuliana staggered
+forward, one hand holding flimsy draperies to her heaving bosom, the other
+at her mouth, which had grown hideously loose and uncontrolled.  Her
+glowing copper hair, all unbound, fell about her shoulders like a mantle.
+
+Behind her with ashen face and trembling limbs came old Busio.  He was
+groaning and ringing his hands.  Thus I saw the pair of them creep forward
+to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword had gone through
+him.
+
+But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them--the faithful servant and the
+unfaithful wife.  All that remained, huddled there at the foot of the
+table, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments.
+
+It was Giuliana who gave me the information.  With a courage that was
+almost stupendous she looked down into his face, then up into mine, which I
+doubt not was as livid.
+
+"You have killed him," she whispered.  "He is dead."
+
+He was dead and I had killed him!  My lips moved.
+
+"He would have killed me," I answered in a strangled voice, and knew that
+what I said was a sort of lie to cloak the foulness of my deed.
+
+Old Busio uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees beside
+the master he had served so long--the master who would never more need
+servant in this world.
+
+It was upon the wings of that pitiful cry that the full understanding of
+the thing I had done was borne in upon my soul.  I bowed my head, and took
+my face in my hands.  I saw myself in that moment for what I was.  I
+accounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement,
+surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency could
+find no pardon.
+
+I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities;
+all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in this hour's
+work.  And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant, who indeed
+had been my victim--whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
+
+Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing and self-
+contempt.  And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror of it all was
+full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft, quivering voice
+murmured urgently in my ear:
+
+"Agostino, we must go; we must go."
+
+I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which she
+shrank in fear.
+
+"We?" I snarled at her.  "We?" I repeated still more fiercely, and drove
+her back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
+
+0, I should have imagined--had I had time in which to imagine anything--
+that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit of infamy.  But
+it seems that one more downward step remained me; and that step I took.
+Not by act, nor yet by speech, but just by thought.
+
+For without the manliness to take the whole blame of this great crime upon
+myself, I must in my soul and mind fling the burden of it upon her.  Like
+Adam of old, I blamed the woman, and charged her in my thoughts with having
+tempted me.  Charging her thus, I loathed her as the cause of all this sin
+that had engulfed me; loathed her in that moment as a thing unclean and
+hideous; loathed her with a completeness of loathing such as I had never
+experienced before for any fellow�creature.
+
+Instead of beholding in her one whom I had dragged with me into my pit of
+sin and whom it was incumbent upon my manhood thenceforth to shelter and
+protect from the consequences of my own iniquity, I attributed to her the
+blame of all that had befallen.
+
+To-day I know that in so doing I did no more than justice.  But it was not
+justly done.  I had then no such knowledge as I have to-day by which to
+correct my judgment.  The worst I had the right to think of her in that
+hour was that her guilt was something less than mine.  In thinking
+otherwise was it that I took that last step to the very bottom of the hell
+that I had myself created for myself that night.
+
+The rest was as nothing by comparison.  I have said that it was not by act
+or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it was by both.
+First, in that fiercely echoed "We?" that I hurled at her to strike her
+from me; then in my precipitate flight alone.
+
+How I stumbled from that room I scarcely know.  The events of the time that
+followed immediately upon Fifanti's death are all blurred as the
+impressions of a sick man's dream.
+
+I dimly remember that as she backed away from me until her shoulders
+touched the wall, that as she stood so, all white and lovely as any snare
+that Satan ever devised for man's ruin, staring at me with mutely pleading
+eyes, I staggered forward, avoiding the sight of that dreadful huddle on
+the floor, over which Busio was weeping foolishly.
+
+As I stepped a sudden moisture struck my stockinged feet.  Its nature I
+knew by instinct upon the instant, and filled by it with a sudden
+unreasoning terror, I dashed with a loud cry from the room.
+
+Along the passage and down the dark stairs I plunged until I reached the
+door of the house.  It stood open and I went heedlessly forth.  From
+overhead I heard Giuliana calling me in a voice that held a note of
+despair.  But I never checked in my headlong career.
+
+Fifanti's mule, I have since reflected, was tethered near the steps.  I saw
+the beast, but it conveyed no meaning to my mind, which I think was numbed.
+I sped past it and on, through the gate, round the road by the Po, under
+the walls of the city, and so away into the open country.
+
+Without cap, without doublet, without shoes, just in my trunks and shirt
+and hose, as I was, I ran, heading by instinct for home as heads the animal
+that has been overtaken by danger whilst abroad.  Never since Phidippides,
+the Athenian courier, do I believe that any man had run as desperately and
+doggedly as I ran that night.
+
+By dawn, having in some three hours put twenty miles or so between myself
+and Piacenza, I staggered exhausted and with cut and bleeding feet through
+the open door of a peasant's house.
+
+The family, sat at breakfast in the stone-flagged room into which I
+stumbled.  I halted under their astonished eyes.
+
+"I am the Lord of Mondolfo," I panted hoarsely, "and I need a beast to
+carry me home."
+
+The head of that considerable family, a grizzled, suntanned peasant, rose
+from his seat and pondered my condition with a glance that was laden with
+mistrust.
+
+"The Lord of Mondolfo--you, thus?" quoth he.  "Now, by Bacchus, I am the
+Pope of Rome!"
+
+But his wife, more tender-hearted, saw in my disorder cause for pity rather
+than irony.
+
+"Poor lad!" she murmured, as I staggered and fell into a chair, unable
+longer to retain my feet.  She rose immediately, and came hurrying towards
+me with a basin of goat's milk.  The draught refreshed my body as her
+gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul.  Seated there, her stout
+arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherly breast, I
+was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state by the sweet touch
+of sympathy, for which may God reward her.
+
+I rested in that place awhile.  Three hours I slept upon a litter of straw
+in an outhouse; whereupon, strengthened by my repose, I renewed my claim to
+be the Lord of Mondolfo and my demand for a horse to carry me to my
+fortress.
+
+Still doubting me too much to trust me alone with any beast of his, the
+peasant nevertheless fetched out a couple of mules and set out with me for
+Mondolfo.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HOME-COMING
+
+
+It was still early morning when we came into the town of Mondolfo, my
+peasant escort and I.
+
+The day being Sunday there was little stir in the town at such an hour, and
+it presented a very different appearance from that which it had worn when
+last I had seen it.  But the difference lay not only in the absence of
+bustle and the few folk abroad now as compared with that market-day on
+which, departing, I had ridden through it.  I viewed the place to-day with
+eyes that were able to draw comparisons, and after the wide streets and
+imposing buildings of Piacenza, I found my little township mean and rustic.
+
+We passed the Duomo, consecrated to Our Lady of Mondolfo.  Its portals
+stood wide, and in the opening swung a heavy crimson curtain, embroidered
+with a huge golden cross which was bellying outward like an enormous
+gonfalon.  On the steps a few crippled beggars whined, and a few faithful
+took their way to early Mass.
+
+On, up the steep, ill-paved street we climbed to the mighty grey citadel
+looming on the hill's crest, like a gigantic guardian brooding over the
+city of his trust.  We crossed the drawbridge unchallenged, passed under
+the tunnel of the gateway, and so came into the vast, untenanted bailey of
+the fortress.
+
+I looked about me, beat my hands together, and raised my voice to shout
+
+"0la!  Ola!"
+
+In answer to my call the door of the guardhouse opened presently, and a man
+looked out.  He frowned at first; then his brows went up and his mouth fell
+open.
+
+"It is the Madonnino!" he shouted over his shoulder, and hurried forward to
+take my reins, uttering words of respectful welcome, which seemed to
+relieve the fears of my peasant, who had never quite believed me what I
+proclaimed myself.
+
+There was a stir in the guardhouse, and two or three men of the absurd
+garrison my mother kept there shuffled in the doorway, whilst a burly
+fellow in leather with a sword girt on him thrust his way through and
+hurried forward, limping slightly.  In the dark, lowering face I recognized
+my old friend Rinolfo, and I marvelled to see him thus accoutred.
+
+He halted before me, and gave me a stiff and unfriendly salute; then he
+bade the man-at-arms to hold my stirrup.
+
+"What is your authority here, Rinolfo?" I asked him shortly.
+
+I am the castellan," he informed me.
+
+"The castellan?  But what of Messer Giorgio?"
+
+"He died a month ago."
+
+"And who gave you this authority?"
+
+"Madonna the Countess, in some recompense for the hurt you did me," he
+replied, thrusting forward his lame leg.
+
+His tone was surly and hostile; but it provoked no resentment in me now.  I
+deserved his unfriendliness.  I had crippled him.  At the moment I forgot
+the provocation I had received--forgot that since he had raised his hand to
+his lord, it would have been no great harshness to have hanged him.  I saw
+in him but another instance of my wickedness, another sufferer at my hands;
+and I hung my head under the rebuke implicit in his surly tone and glance.
+
+"I had not thought, Rinolfo, to do you an abiding hurt," said I, and here
+checked, bethinking me that I lied; for had I not expressed regret that I
+had not broken his neck?
+
+I got down slowly and painfully, for my limbs were stiff and my feet very
+sore.  He smiled darkly at my words and my sudden faltering; but I affected
+not to see.
+
+"Where is Madonna?" I asked.
+
+"She will have returned by now from chapel," he answered.
+
+I turned to the man-at-arms.  "You will announce me," I bade him.  "And
+you, Rinolfo, see to these beasts and to this good fellow here.  Let him
+have wine and food and what he needs.  I will see him again ere he sets
+forth."
+
+Rinolfo muttered that all should be done as I ordered, and I signed to the
+man-at-arms to lead the way.
+
+We went up the steps and into the cool of the great hall.  There the
+soldier, whose every feeling had been outraged no doubt by Rinolfo's
+attitude towards his lord, ventured to express his sympathy and
+indignation.
+
+"Rinolfo is a black beast, Madonnino," he muttered.
+
+"We are all black beasts, Eugenio," I answered heavily, and so startled him
+by words and tone that he ventured upon no further speech, but led me
+straight to my mother's private dining-room, opened the door and calmly
+announced me.
+
+"Madonna, here is my Lord Agostino."
+
+I heard the gasp she uttered before I caught sight of her.  She was seated
+at the table's head in her great wooden chair, and Fra Gervasio was pacing
+the rush-strewn floor in talk with her, his hands behind his back, his head
+thrust forward.
+
+At the announcement he straightened suddenly and wheeled round to face me,
+inquiry in his glance.  My mother, too, half rose, and remained so, staring
+at me, her amazement at seeing me increased by the strange appearance I
+presented.
+
+Eugenio closed the door and departed, leaving me standing there, just
+within it; and for a moment no word was spoken.
+
+The cheerless, familiar room, looking more cheerless than it had done of
+old, with its high-set windows and ghastly Crucifix, affected me in a
+singular manner.  In this room I had known a sort of peace--the peace that
+is peculiarly childhood's own, whatever the troubles that may haunt it.  I
+came into it now with hell in my soul, sin-blackened before God and man, a
+fugitive in quest of sanctuary.
+
+A knot rose in my throat and paralysed awhile my speech.  Then with a
+sudden sob, I sprang forward and hobbled to her upon my wounded feet.  I
+flung myself down upon my knees, buried my head in her lap, and all that I
+could cry was:
+
+"Mother!  Mother!"
+
+Whether perceiving my disorder, my distraught and suffering condition, what
+remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry acting like
+a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of piety had long
+since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs that had long since
+been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond between us, her tone was more
+kindly and gentle than I had ever known it.
+
+"Agostino, my child!  Why are you here?"  And her wax-like fingers very
+gently touched my head.  "Why are you here--and thus?  What has happened to
+you?"
+
+"Me miserable!" I groaned.
+
+"What is it?" she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.
+
+At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.
+
+"Mother, I am a sinner," I faltered miserably.
+
+I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and
+contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some
+shadow of the thing that I had done.  And then Gervasio spoke, and his
+voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.
+
+"Sinners are we all, Agostino.  But repentance purges sin.  Do not abandon
+yourself to despair, my son."
+
+But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.
+
+"What is it?  Wretched boy, what have you done?"  And the cold repugnance
+in her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.
+
+"0 God help me!  God help me!" I groaned miserably.
+
+Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that
+was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"Dear Agostino," he murmured, "would you find it easier to tell me first?
+Will you confess to me, my son?  Will you let me lift this burden from your
+soul?"
+
+Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face.  I
+caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away.  "If there
+were more priests like you," I cried, "there would be fewer sinners like
+me."
+
+A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a
+gleam of pale sunshine from an over�clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle,
+soothing words of the Divine Mercy.
+
+I staggered to my bruised feet.  "I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio," I
+said, "and afterwards we will tell my mother."
+
+She looked as she would make demur.  But Fra Gervasio checked any such
+intent.
+
+"It is best so, Madonna," he said gravely.  "His most urgent need is the
+consolation that the Church alone can give."
+
+He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth.  We went to his modest
+chamber, with its waxed floor, the hard, narrow pallet upon which he slept,
+the blue and gold image of the Virgin, and the little writing-pulpit upon
+which lay open a manuscript he was illuminating, for he was very skilled in
+that art which already was falling into desuetude.
+
+At this pulpit, by the window, he took his seat, and signed to me to kneel.
+I recited the Confiteor.  Thereafter, with my face buried in my hands, my
+soul writhing in an agony of penitence and shame, I poured out the hideous
+tale of the evil I had wrought.
+
+Rarely did he speak while I was at that recitation.  Save when I halted or
+hesitated he would interject a word of pity and of comfort that fell like a
+blessed balsam upon my spiritual wounds and gave me strength to pursue my
+awful story.
+
+When I had done and he knew me to the full for the murderer and adulterer
+that I was, there fell a long pause, during which I waited as a felon
+awaits sentence.  But it did not come.  Instead, he set himself to examine
+more closely the thing I had told him.  He probed it with a question here
+and a question there, and all of a shrewdness that revealed the extent of
+his knowledge of humanity, and the infinite compassion and gentleness that
+must be the inevitable fruits of such sad knowledge.
+
+He caused me to go back to the very day of my arrival at Fifanti's; and
+thence, step by step, he led me again over the road that in the past four
+months I had trodden, until he had traced the evil to its very source, and
+could see the tiny spring that had formed the brook which, gathering volume
+as it went, had swollen at last into a raging torrent that had laid waste
+its narrow confines.
+
+"Who that knows all that goes to the making of a sin shall dare to condemn
+a sinner?" he cried at last, so that I looked up at him, startled, and
+penetrated by a ray of hope and comfort.  He returned my glance with one of
+infinite pity.
+
+"It is the woman here upon whom must fall the greater blame," said he.
+
+But at that I cried out in hot remonstrance, adding that I had yet another
+vileness to confess--for it was now that for the first time I realized it.
+And I related to him how last night I had repudiated her, cast her off and
+fled, leaving her to bear the punishment alone.
+
+Of my conduct in that he withheld his criticism.  "The sin is hers," he
+repeated.  "She was a wife, and the adultery is hers.  More, she was the
+seducer.  It was she who debauched your mind with lascivious readings, and
+tore away the foundations of virtue from your soul.  If in the cataclysm
+that followed she was crushed and smothered, it is no more than she had
+incurred."
+
+I still protested that this view was all too lenient to me, that it sprang
+of his love for me, that it was not just.  Thereupon he began to make clear
+to me many things that may have been clear to you worldly ones who have
+read my scrupulous and exact confessions, but which at the time were still
+all wrapped in obscurity for me.
+
+It was as if he held up a mirror--an intelligent and informing mirror--in
+which my deeds were reflected by the light of his own deep knowledge.  He
+showed me the gradual seduction to which I had been subjected; he showed me
+Giuliana as she really was, as she must be from what I had told him; he
+reminded me that she was older by ten years than I, and greatly skilled in
+men and worldliness; that where I had gone blindly, never seeing what was
+the inevitable goal and end of the road I trod, she had consciously been
+leading me thither, knowing full well what the end must be, and desiring
+it.
+
+As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been done
+in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the poor
+man's death.  And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame.  Largely
+had he contributed to the tragedy.  There had been evil in his heart.  A
+good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which he knew to
+be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him to trap and
+slay his enemy.
+
+And the greatest blame of all he attached to that Messer Arcolano who had
+recommended Fifanti to my mother as a tutor for me, knowing full well--as
+he must have known--what manner of house the doctor kept and what manner of
+wanton was Giuliana.  Arcolano had sought to serve Fifanti's interests in
+pretending to serve mine and my mother's; and my mother should be
+enlightened that at last she might know that evil man for what he really
+was.
+
+"But all this," he concluded, "does not mean, Agostino, that you are to
+regard yourself as other than a great sinner.  You have sinned monstrously,
+even when all these extenuations are considered."
+
+"I know, I know!" I groaned.
+
+"But beyond forgiveness no man has ever sinned, nor have you now.  So that
+your repentance is deep and real, and when by some penance that I shall
+impose you shall have cleansed yourself of all this mire that clings to
+your poor soul, you shall have absolution from me."
+
+"Impose your penance," I cried eagerly.  "There is none I will not
+undertake, to purchase pardon and some little peace of mind.
+
+"I will consider it," he answered gravely.  "And now let us seek your
+mother.  She must be told, for a great deals hangs upon this, Agostino.
+The career to which you were destined is no longer for you, my son."
+
+My spirit quailed under those last words; and yet I felt an immense relief
+at the same time, as if some overwhelming burden had been lifted from me.
+
+"I am indeed unworthy," I said.
+
+"It is not your unworthiness that I am considering, my son, but your
+nature.  The world calls you over-strongly.  It is not for nothing that you
+are the child of Giovanni d'Anguissola.  His blood runs thick in your
+veins, and it is very human blood.  For such as you there is no hope in the
+cloister.  Your mother must be made to realize it, and she must abandon her
+dreams concerning you.  It will wound her very sorely.  But better that
+than..."  He shrugged and rose.  "Come, Agostino."
+
+And I rose, too, immensely comforted and soothed already, for all that I
+was yet very far from ease or peace of mind.  Outside his room he set a
+hand upon my arm.
+
+"Wait," he said, "we have ministered in some degree to your poor spirit.
+Let us take thought for the body, too.  You need garments and other things.
+Come with me."
+
+He led me up to my own little chamber, took fresh raiment for me from a
+press, called Lorenza and bade her bring bread and wine, vinegar and warm
+water.
+
+In a very weak dilution of the latter he bade me bathe my lacerated feet,
+and then he found fine strips of linen in which to bind them ere I drew
+fresh hose and shoes.  And meanwhile munching my bread and salt and taking
+great draughts of the pure if somewhat sour wine, my mental peace was
+increased by the refreshment of my body.
+
+At last I stood up more myself than I had been in these last twelve awful
+hours--for it was just noon, and into twelve hours had been packed the
+events that well might have filled a lifetime.
+
+He put an arm about my shoulder, fondly as a father might have done, and so
+led me below again and into my mother's presence.
+
+We found her kneeling before the Crucifix, telling her beads; and we stood
+waiting a few moments in silence until with a sigh and a rustle of her
+stiff black dress she rose gently and turned to face us.
+
+My heart thudded violently in that moment, as I looked into that pale face
+of sorrow.  Then Fra Gervasio began to speak very gently and softly.
+
+"Your son, Madonna, has been lured into sin by a wanton woman," he began,
+and there she interrupted him with a sudden and very piteous cry.
+
+"Not that!  Ah, not that!" she exclaimed, putting out hands gropingly
+before her.
+
+"That and more, Madonna," he answered gravely.  "Be brave to hear the rest.
+It is a very piteous story.  But the founts of Divine Mercy are
+inexhaustible, and Agostino shall drink therefrom when by penitence he
+shall have cleansed his lips."
+
+Very erect she stood there, silent and ghostly, her face looking diaphanous
+by contrast with the black draperies that enshrouded her, whilst her eyes
+were great pools of sorrow.  Poor, poor mother!  It is the last
+recollection I have of her; for after that day we never met again, and I
+would give ten years to purgatory if I might recall the last words that
+passed between us.
+
+As briefly as possible and ever thrusting into the foreground the immensity
+of the snare that had been spread for me and the temptation that had
+enmeshed me, Gervasio told her the story of my sin.
+
+She heard him through in that immovable attitude, one hand pressed to her
+heart, her poor pale lips moving now and again, but no sound coming from
+them, her face a white mask of pain and horror.
+
+When he had done, so wrought upon was I by the sorrow of that countenance
+that I went forward again to fling myself upon my knees before her.
+
+"Mother, forgive!" I pleaded.  And getting no answer I put up my hands to
+take hers.  "Mother!" I cried, and the tears were streaming down my face.
+
+But she recoiled before me.
+
+"Are you my child?" she asked in a voice of horror.  "Are you the thing
+that has grown out of that little child I vowed to chastity and to God?
+Then has my sin overtaken me--the sin of bearing a son to Giovanni
+d'Anguissola, that enemy of God!"
+
+"Ah, mother, mother!" I cried again, thinking perhaps by that all-powerful
+word to move her yet to pity and to gentleness.
+
+"Madonna," cried Gervasio, "be merciful if you would look for mercy."
+
+"He has falsified my vows," she answered stonily.  "He was my votive
+offering for the life of his impious father.  I am punished for the
+unworthiness of my offering and the unworthiness of the cause in which I
+offered it.  Accursed is the fruit of my womb!"  She moaned, and sank her
+head upon her breast.
+
+"I will atone!" I cried, overwhelmed to see her so distraught.
+
+She wrung her pale hands.
+
+"Atone!" she cried, and her voice trembled.  "Go then, and atone.  But
+never let me see you more; never let me be reminded of the sinner to whom I
+have given life.  Go!  Begone!"  And she raised a hand in tragical
+dismissal.
+
+I shrank back, and came slowly to my feet.  And then Gervasio spoke, and
+his voice boomed and thundered with righteous indignation.
+
+"Madonna, this is inhuman!" he denounced.  "Shall you dare to hope for
+mercy being yourself unmerciful?"
+
+"I shall pray for strength to forgive him; but the sight of him might tempt
+me back with the memory of the thing that he has done," she answered, and
+she had returned to that cold and terrible reserve of hers.
+
+And then things that Fra Gervasio had repressed for years welled up in a
+mighty flood.  "He is your son, and he is as you have made him."
+
+"As I have made him?" quoth she, and her glance challenged the friar.
+
+"By what right did you make of him a votive offering?  By what right did
+you seek to consecrate a child unborn to a claustral life without thought
+of his character, without reck of the desires that should be his?  By what
+right did you make yourself the arbiter of the future of a man unborn?"
+
+"By what right?" quoth she.  "Are you a priest, and do you ask me by what
+right I vowed him to the service of God?"
+
+"And is there, think you, no way of serving God but in the sterility of the
+cloister?" he demanded.  "Why, since no man is born to damnation, and since
+by your reasoning the world must mean damnation, then all men should be
+encloistered, and soon, thus, there would be an end to man.  You are too
+arrogant, Madonna, when you presume to judge what pleases God.  Beware lest
+you fall into the sin of the Pharisee, for often have I seen you stand in
+danger of it."
+
+She swayed as if her strength were failing her, and again her pale lips
+moved.
+
+"Enough, Fra Gervasio!  I will go," I cried.
+
+"Nay, it is not yet enough," he answered, and strode down the room until he
+stood between her and me.  "He is what you have made him," he repeated in
+denunciation.  "Had you studied his nature and his inclinations, had you
+left them free to develop along the way that God intended, you would have
+seen whether or not the cloister called him; and then would have been the
+time to have taken a resolve.  But you thought to change his nature by
+repressing it; and you never saw that if he was not such as you would have
+him be, then most surely would you doom him to damnation by making an evil
+priest of him.
+
+"In your Pharisaic arrogance, Madonna, you sought to superimpose your will
+to God's will concerning him--you confounded God's will with your own.  And
+so his sins recoil upon you as much as upon any.  Therefore, Madonna, do I
+bid you beware.  Take a humbler view if you would be acceptable in the
+Divine sight.  Learn to forgive, for I say to you to-day that you stand as
+greatly in need of forgiveness for the thing that Agostino has done, as
+does Agostino himself."
+
+He paused at last, and stood trembling before her, his eyes aflame, his
+high cheek-bones faintly tinted.  And she measured him very calmly and
+coldly with her sombre eyes.
+
+"Are you a priest?" she asked with steady scorn.  "Are you indeed a
+priest?"  And then her invective was loosened, and her voice shrilled and
+mounted as her anger swayed her.  "What a snake have I harboured here!" she
+cried.  "Blasphemer!  You show me clearly whence came the impiety and
+ungodliness of Giovanni d'Anguissola.  It had the same source as your own.
+It was suckled at your mother's breast."
+
+A sob shook him.  "My mother is dead, Madonna!" he rebuked her.
+
+"She is more blessed, then, than I; since she has not lived to see what a
+power for sin she has brought forth.  Go, pitiful friar.  Go, both of you.
+You are very choicely mated.  Begone from Mondolfo, and never let me see
+either of you more."
+
+She staggered to her great chair and sank into it, whilst we stood there,
+mute, regarding her.  For myself, it was with difficulty that I repressed
+the burning things that rose to my lips.  Had I given free rein to my
+tongue, I had made of it a whip of scorpions.  And my anger sprang not from
+the things she said to me, but from what she said to that saintly man who
+held out a hand to help me out of the morass of sin in which I was being
+sunk.  That he, that sweet and charitable follower of his Master, should be
+abused by her, should be dubbed blasphemer and have the cherished memory of
+his mother defiled by her pietistic utterances, was something that inflamed
+me horribly.
+
+But he set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"Come, Agostino," he said very gently.  He was calm once more.  "We will
+go, as we are bidden, you and I."
+
+And then, out of the sweetness of his nature, he forged all unwittingly the
+very iron that should penetrate most surely into her soul.
+
+"Forgive her, my son.  Forgive her as you need forgiveness.  She does not
+understand the thing she does.  Come, we will pray for her, that God in His
+infinite mercy may teach her humility and true knowledge of Him."
+
+I saw her start as if she had been stung.
+
+"Blasphemer, begone!" she cried again; and her voice was hoarse with
+suppressed anger.
+
+And then the door was suddenly flung open, and Rinolfo clanked in, very
+martial and important, his hand thrusting up his sword behind him.
+
+"Madonna," he announced, "the Captain of Justice from Piacenza is here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CAPTAIN OF JUSTICE
+
+
+There was a moment's silence after Rinolfo had flung that announcement.
+
+"The Captain of Justice?" quoth my mother at length, her voice startled.
+"What does he seek?"
+
+"The person of my Lord Agostino d'Anguissola," said Rinolfo steadily.
+
+She sighed very heavily.  "A felon's end!" she murmured, and turned to me.
+"If thus you may expiate your sins," she said, speaking more gently, "let
+the will of Heaven be done.  Admit the captain, Ser Rinolfo."
+
+He bowed, and turned sharply to depart.
+
+"Stay!" I cried, and rooted him there by the imperative note of my command.
+
+Fra Gervasio was more than right when he said that mine was not a nature
+for the cloister.  In that moment I might have realized it to the full by
+the readiness with which the thought of battle occurred to me, and more by
+the anticipatory glow that warmed me at the very thought of it.  I was the
+very son of Giovanni d'Anguissola.
+
+"What force attends the captain?" I inquired.
+
+"He has six mounted men with him," replied Rinolfo.  "In that case," I
+answered, "you will bid him begone in my name."
+
+"And if he should not go?" was Rinolfo's impudent question.
+
+"You will tell him that I will drive him hence--him and his braves.  We
+keep a garrison of a score of men at least--sufficient to compel him to
+depart."
+
+"He will return again with more," said Rinolfo.
+
+"Does that concern you?" I snapped.  "Let him return with what he pleases.
+To-day I enrol more forces from the countryside, take up the bridge and
+mount our cannon.  This is my lair and fortress, and I'll defend it and
+myself as becomes my name and blood.  For I am the lord and master here,
+and the Lord of Mondolfo is not to be dragged away thus at the heels of a
+Captain of Justice.  You have my orders, obey them.  About it, sir."
+
+Circumstances had shown me the way that I must take, and the folly of going
+forth a fugitive outcast at my mother's bidding.  I was Lord of Mondolfo,
+as I had said, and they should know and feel it from this hour--all of
+them, not excepting my mother.
+
+But I reckoned without the hatred Rinolfo bore me.  Instead of the prompt
+obedience that I had looked for, he had turned again to my mother.
+
+"Is it your wish, Madonna?" he inquired.
+
+"It is my wish that counts, you knave," I thundered and advanced upon him.
+
+But he fronted me intrepidly.  "I hold my office from my Lady the Countess.
+I obey none other here."
+
+"Body of God!  Do you defy me?" I cried.  "Am I Lord of Mondolfo, or am I a
+lackey in my own house?  You'ld best obey me ere I break you, Ser Rinolfo.
+We shall see whether the men will take my orders," I added confidently.
+
+The faintest smile illumined his dark face.  "The men will not stir a
+finger at the bidding of any but Madonna the Countess and myself," he
+answered hardily.
+
+It was by an effort that I refrained from striking him.  And then my mother
+spoke again.
+
+"It is as Ser Rinolfo says," she informed me.  "So cease this futile
+resistance, sir son, and accept the expiation that is offered you."
+
+I looked at her, she avoiding my glance.
+
+"Madonna, I cannot think that it is so," said I.  "These men have known me
+since I was a little lad.  Many of them have followed the fortunes of my
+father.  They'll never turn their backs upon his son in the hour of his
+need.  They are not all so inhuman as my mother."
+
+"You mistake, sir," said Rinolfo.  "Of the men you knew but one or two
+remain.  Most of our present force has been enrolled by me in the past
+month."
+
+This was defeat, utter and pitiful.  His tone was too confident, he was too
+sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if I made
+appeal to his knavish followers.  My arms fell to my sides, and I looked at
+Gervasio.  His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of sorrow as
+they rested on me.
+
+"It is true, Agostino," he said.
+
+And as he spoke, Rinolfo limped out of the room to fetch the Captain of
+Justice, as my mother had bidden him; and his lips smiled cruelly.
+
+"Madam mother," I said bitterly, "you do a monstrous thing.  You usurp the
+power that is mine, and you deliver me--me, your son--to the gallows.  I
+hope that, hereafter, when you come to realize to the full your deed, you
+will be able to give your conscience peace."
+
+"My first duty is to God," she answered; and to that pitiable answer there
+was nothing to be rejoined.
+
+So I turned my shoulder to her and stood waiting, Fra Gervasio beside me,
+clenching his hands in his impotence and mute despair.  And then an
+approaching clank of mail heralded the coming of the captain.
+
+Rinolfo held the door, and Cosimo d'Anguissola entered with a firm, proud
+tread, two of his men, following at his heels.
+
+He wore a buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of mail;
+his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear was a
+steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet.  Thigh-boots encased his
+legs; sword and dagger hung in the silver carriages at his belt; his
+handsome, aquiline face was very solemn.
+
+He bowed profoundly to my mother, who rose to respond, and then he flashed
+me one swift glance of his piercing eyes.
+
+"I deplore my business here," he announced shortly.  "No doubt it will be
+known to you already."  And he looked at me again, allowing his eyes to
+linger on my face.
+
+"I am ready, sir," I said.
+
+"Then we had best be going, for I understand that none could be less
+welcome here than I.  Yet in this, Madonna, let me assure you that there is
+nothing personal to myself.  I am the slave of my office.  I do but perform
+it."
+
+"So much protesting where no doubt has been expressed," said Fra Gervasio,
+"in itself casts a doubt upon your good faith.  Are you not Cosimo
+d'Anguissola--my lord's cousin and heir?"
+
+"I am," said he, "yet that has no part in this, sir friar."
+
+"Then let it have part.  Let it have the part it should have.  Will you
+bear one of your own name and blood to the gallows?  What will men say of
+that when they perceive your profit in the deed?"
+
+Cosimo looked him boldly between the eyes, his hawk-face very white.
+
+"Sir priest, I know not by what right you address me so.  But you do me
+wrong.  I am the Podesta of Piacenza bound by an oath that it would
+dishonour me to break; and break it I must or else fulfil my duty here.
+Enough!" he added, in his haughty, peremptory fashion.  "Ser Agostino, I
+await your pleasure."
+
+"I will appeal to Rome," cried Fra Gervasio, now beside himself with grief.
+
+Cosimo smiled darkly, pityingly.  "It is to be feared that Rome will turn a
+deaf ear to appeals on behalf of the son of Giovanni d'Anguissola."
+
+And with that he motioned me to precede him.  Silently I pressed Fra
+Gervasio's hand, and on that departed without so much as another look at my
+mother, who sat there a silent witness of a scene which she approved.
+
+The men-at-arms fell into step, one on either side of me, and so we passed
+out into the courtyard, where Cosimo's other men were waiting, and where
+was gathered the entire family of the castle--a gaping, rather frightened
+little crowd.
+
+They brought forth a mule for me, and I mounted.  Then suddenly there was
+Fra Gervasio at my side again.
+
+"I, too, am going hence," he said.  "Be of good courage, Agostino.  There
+is no effort I will not make on your behalf."  In a broken voice he added
+his farewells ere he stood back at the captain's peremptory bidding.  The
+little troop closed round me, and thus, within a couple of hours of my
+coming, I departed again from Mondolfo, surrendered to the hangman by the
+pious hands of my mother, who on her knees, no doubt, would be thanking God
+for having afforded her the grace to act in so righteous a manner.
+
+Once only did my cousin address me, and that was soon after we had left the
+town behind us.  He motioned the men away, and rode to my side.  Then he
+looked at me with mocking, hating eyes.
+
+"You had done better to have continued in your saint's trade than have
+become so very magnificent a sinner," said he.
+
+I did not answer him, and he rode on beside me in silence some little way.
+
+"Ah, well," he sighed at last.  "Your course has been a brief one, but very
+eventful.  And who would have suspected so very fierce a wolf under so
+sheepish an outside?  Body of God!  You fooled us all, you and that white-
+faced trull."
+
+He said it through his teeth with such a concentration of rage in his tones
+that it was easy to guess where the sore rankled.
+
+I looked at him gravely.  "Does it become you, sir, do you think, to gird
+at one who is your prisoner?"
+
+"And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?" he flashed back
+fiercely.   "Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool
+Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have been
+the only one excluded from her favours?"
+
+"You lie, you dog!" I blazed at him, so fiercely that the men turned in
+their saddles.  He paled, and half raised the gauntleted hand in which he
+carried his whip.  But he controlled himself, and barked an order to his
+followers:
+
+"Ride on, there!"
+
+When they had drawn off a little, and we were alone again, "I do not lie,
+sir," he said.  "It is a practice which I leave to shavelings of all
+degrees."
+
+"If you say that she took aught from you, then you lie," I repeated.
+
+He considered me steadily.  "Fool!" he said at last.  "Whence else came her
+jewels and fine clothes?  From Fifanti, do you think--that impecunious
+pedant?  Or perhaps you imagine that it was from Gambara?  In time that
+grasping prelate might have made the Duke pay.  But pay, himself?  By the
+Blood of God! he was never known to pay for anything.
+
+"Or, yet again, do you suppose her finery was afforded her by Caro?--Messer
+Annibale Caro--who is so much in debt that he is never like to return to
+Piacenza, unless some dolt of a patron rewards him for his poetaster's
+labours.
+
+"No, no, my shaveling.  It was I who paid--I who was the fool.  God! I more
+than suspected the others.  But you.  You saint...You!"
+
+He flung up his head, and laughed bitterly and unpleasantly.  "Ah, well!"
+he ended, "You are to pay, though in different kind.  It is in the family,
+you see."  And abruptly raising his voice he shouted to the men to wait.
+
+Thereafter he rode ahead, alone and gloomy, whilst no less alone and gloomy
+rode I amid my guards.  The thing he had revealed to me had torn away a
+veil from my silly eyes.  It had made me understand a hundred little
+matters that hitherto had been puzzling me.  And I saw how utterly and
+fatuously blind I had been to things which even Fra Gervasio had
+apprehended from just the relation he had drawn from me.
+
+It was as we were entering Piacenza by the Gate of San Lazzaro that I again
+drew my cousin to my side.
+
+"Sir Captain!" I called to him, for I could not bring myself to address him
+as cousin now.  He came, inquiry in his eyes.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked.
+
+He stared at me a moment, as if my effrontery astonished him.  Then he
+shrugged and sneered.  "I would I knew for certain," was his fierce answer.
+"I would I knew.  Then should I have the pair of you."  And I saw it in his
+face how unforgivingly he hated me out of his savage jealousy.  "My Lord
+Gambara might tell you.  I scarcely doubt it.  Were I but certain, what a
+reckoning should I not present!  He may be Governor of Piacenza, but were
+he Governor of Hell he should not escape me."  And with that he rode ahead
+again, and left me.
+
+The rumour of our coming sped through the streets ahead of us, and out of
+the houses poured the townsfolk to watch our passage and to point me out
+one to another with many whisperings and solemn head-waggings.  And the
+farther we advanced, the greater was the concourse, until by the time we
+reached the square before the Communal Palace we found there what amounted
+to a mob awaiting us.
+
+My guards closed round me as if to protect me from that crowd.  But I was
+strangely without fear, and presently I was to see how little cause there
+was for any, and to realize that the action of my guards was sprung from a
+very different motive.
+
+The people stood silent, and on every upturned face of which I caught a
+glimpse I saw something that was akin to pity.  Presently, however, as we
+drew nearer to the Palace, a murmur began to rise.  It swelled and grew
+fierce.  Suddenly a cry rose vehement and clear.
+
+"Rescue!  Rescue!"
+
+"He is the Lord of Mondolfo," shouted one tall fellow, "and the Cardinal-
+legate makes a cat's-paw of him!  He is to suffer for Messer Gambara's
+villainy!"
+
+Again he was answered by the cry--"Rescue!  Rescue!" whilst some added an
+angry--"Death to the Legate!"
+
+Whilst I was deeply marvelling at all this, Cosimo looked at me over his
+shoulder, and though his lips were steady, his eyes seemed to smile,
+charged with a message of derision--and something more, something that I
+could not read.  Then I heard his hard, metallic voice.
+
+"Back there, you curs!  To your kennels!  Out of the way, or we ride you
+down."
+
+He had drawn his sword, and his white hawk-face was so cruel and determined
+that they fell away before him and their cries died down.
+
+We passed into the courtyard of the Communal Palace, and the great studded
+gates were slammed in the faces of the mob, and barred.
+
+I got down from my mule, and was conducted at Cosimo's bidding to one of
+the dungeons under the Palace, where I was left with the announcement that
+I must present myself to-morrow before the Tribunal of the Ruota.
+
+I flung myself down upon the dried rushes that had been heaped in a corner
+to do duty for a bed, and I abandoned myself to my bitter thoughts.  In
+particular I pondered the meaning of the crowd's strange attitude.  Nor was
+it a riddle difficult to resolve.  It was evident that believing Gambara,
+as they did, to be Giuliana's lover, and informed perhaps--invention
+swelling rumour as it will--that the Cardinal-legate had ridden late last
+night to Fifanti's house, it had been put about that the foul murder done
+there was Messer Gambara's work.
+
+Thus was the Legate reaping the harvest of all the hatred he had sown, of
+all the tyranny and extortion of his iron rule in Piacenza.  And willing to
+believe any evil of the man they hated, they not only laid Fifanti's death
+at his door, but they went to further lengths and accounted that I was the
+cat's-paw; that I was to be sacrificed to save the Legate's face and
+reputation.  They remembered perhaps the ill-odour in which we Anguissola
+of Mondolfo had been at Rome, for the ghibelline leanings that ever had
+been ours and for the rebellion of my father against the Pontifical sway;
+and their conclusions gathered a sort of confirmation from that
+circumstance.
+
+Long upon the very edge of mutiny and revolt against Gambara's injustice,
+it had needed but what seemed a crowning one such as this to quicken their
+hatred into expression.
+
+It was all very clear and obvious, and it seemed to me that to-morrow's
+trial should be very interesting.  I had but to deny; I had but to make
+myself the mouthpiece of the rumour that was abroad, and Heaven alone could
+foretell what the consequences might be.
+
+Then I smiled bitterly to myself.  Deny?  0, no!  That was a last vileness
+I could not perpetrate.  The Ruota should hear the truth, and Gambara
+should be left to shelter Giuliana, who--Cosimo was assured--had fled to
+him in her need as to a natural protector.
+
+It was a bitter thought.  The intensity of that bitterness made me realize
+with alarm how it still was with me.  And pondering this, I fell asleep,
+utterly worn out in body and in mind by the awful turmoil of that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+GAMBARA'S INTERESTS
+
+
+I awakened to find a man standing beside me.  He was muffled in a black
+cloak and carried a lanthorn.  Behind him the door gaped as he had left it.
+
+Instantly I sat up, conscious of my circumstance and surroundings, and at
+my movement this visitor spoke.
+
+"You sleep very soundly for a man in your case." said he, and the voice was
+that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical.
+
+He set down the lanthorn on a stool, whence it shed a wheel of yellow light
+intersected with black beams.  His cloak fell apart, and I saw that he was
+dressed for riding, very plainly, in sombre garments, and that he was
+armed.
+
+He stood slightly to one side that the light might fall upon my face,
+leaving his own in shadow; thus he considered me for some moments in
+silence.  At last, very slowly, very bitterly, shaking his head as he
+spoke.
+
+"You fool, you clumsy fool!" he said.
+
+Having drawn, as you have seen, my own conclusions from the attitude of the
+mob, I was in little doubt as to the precise bearing of his words.
+
+I answered him sincerely.  "If folly were all my guilt," said I, "it would
+be well."
+
+He sniffed impatiently.  "Still sanctimonious!" he sneered.  "Tcha!  Up
+now, and play the man, at least.  You have shed your robe of sanctity,
+Messer Agostino; have done with pretence!"
+
+"I do not pretend," I answered him.  "And as for playing the man, I shall
+accept what punishment the law may have for me with fortitude at least.  If
+I can but expiate..."
+
+"Expiate a fig!" he snapped, interrupting me.  "Why do you suppose that I
+am here?"
+
+"I wait to learn."
+
+"I am here because through your folly you have undone us all.  What need,"
+he cried, the anger of expostulation quivering in his voice, "what need was
+there to kill that oaf Fifanti?"
+
+"He would have killed me," said I.  "I slew him in self-defence."
+
+"Ha!  And do you hope to save your neck with such a plea?"
+
+"Nay.  I have no thought of urging it.  I but tell it you."
+
+"There is not the need to tell me anything," he answered, his anger very
+plain.  "I am very well informed of all.  Rather, let me tell you
+something.  Do you realize, sir, that you have made it impossible for me to
+abide another day in Piacenza?"
+
+"I am sorry..." I began lamely.
+
+"Present your regrets to Satan," he snapped.  "Me they avail nothing.  I am
+put to the necessity of abandoning my governorship and fleeing by night
+like a hunted thief.  And I have you to thank for it.  You see me on the
+point of departure.  My horses wait above.  So you may add my ruin to the
+other fine things you accomplished yesternight.  For a saint you are over-
+busy, sir."  And he turned away and strode the length of my cell and back,
+so that, at last, I had a glimpse of his face, which was drawn and
+scowling.  Gone now was the last vestige of his habitual silkiness; the
+pomander-ball hung neglected, and his delicate fingers tugged viciously at
+his little pointed beard, his great sapphire ring flashing sombrely.
+
+"Look you, Ser Agostino, I could kill you and take joy in it.  I could, by
+God!"
+
+His eyes upon me, he drew from his breast a folded paper.  "Instead, I
+bring you liberty.  I open your doors for you, and bid you escape.  Here,
+man, take this paper.  Present it to the officer at the Fodesta Gate.  He
+will let you pass.  And then away with you, out of the territory of
+Piacenza."
+
+For an instant my heart-beats seemed suspended by astonishment.  I swung my
+legs round, and half rose, excitedly.  Then I sank back again.  My mind was
+made up.  I was tired of the world; sick of life the first draught of which
+had turned so bitter in my throat.  If by my death I might expiate my sins
+and win pardon by my submission and humility, it was all I could desire.  I
+should be glad to be released from all the misery and sorrow into which I
+had been born.
+
+I told him so in some few words.  "You mean me well, my lord," I ended,
+"and I thank you.  But..."
+
+"By God and the Saints!" he blazed, "I do not mean you well at all.  I mean
+you anything but well.  Have I not said that I could kill you with
+satisfaction?  Whatever be the sins of Egidio Gambara, he is no hypocrite,
+and he lets his enemies see his face unmasked."
+
+"But, then," I cried, amazed, "why do you offer me my freedom?"
+
+"Because this cursed populace is in such a temper that if you are brought
+to trial I know not what may happen.  As likely as not we shall have an
+insurrection, open revolt against the Pontifical authority, and red war in
+the streets.  And this is not the time for it.
+
+"The Holy Father requires the submission of these people.  We are upon the
+eve of Duke Pier Luigi's coming to occupy his new States, and it imports
+that he should be well received, that he should be given a loving welcome
+by his subjects.  If, instead, they meet him with revolt and defiance, the
+reasons will be sought, and the blame of the affair will recoil upon me.
+Your cousin Cosimo will see to that.  He is a very subtle gentleman, this
+cousin of yours, and he has a way of working to his own profit.  So now you
+understand.  I have no mind to be crushed in this business.  Enough have I
+suffered already through you, enough am I suffering in resigning my
+governorship.  So there is but one way out.  There must be no trial
+to-morrow.  It must be known that you have escaped.  Thus they will be
+quieted, and the matter will blow over.  So now, Ser Agostino, we
+understand each other.  You must go."
+
+"And whither am I to go?" I cried, remembering my mother and that
+Mondolfo--the only place of safety--was closed to me by her cruelly pious
+hands.
+
+"Whither?" he echoed.  "What do I care?  To Hell--anywhere, so that you get
+out of this."
+
+"I'ld sooner hang," said I quite seriously.
+
+"You'ld hang and welcome, for all the love I bear you," he answered, his
+impatience growing.  "But if you hang blood will be shed, innocent lives
+will be lost, and I myself may come to suffer."
+
+"For you, sir, I care nothing," I answered him, taking his own tone, and
+returning him the same brutal frankness that he used with me.  "That you
+deserve to suffer I do not doubt.  But since other blood than yours might
+be shed as you say, since innocent lives might be lost...Give me the
+paper."
+
+He was frowning upon me, and smiling viperishly at the same time.  "I like
+your frankness better than your piety," said he.  "So now we understand
+each other, and know that neither is in the other's debt.  Hereafter beware
+of Egidio Gambara.  I give you this last loyal warning.  See that you do
+not come into my way again."
+
+I rose and looked at him--looked down from my greater height.  I knew well
+the source of this last, parting show of hatred.  Like Cosimo's it sprang
+from jealousy.  And a growth more potential of evil does not exist.
+
+He bore my glance a moment, then turned and took up the lanthorn.  "Come,"
+he said, and obediently I followed him up the winding stone staircase, and
+so to the very gates of the Palace.
+
+We met no one.  What had become of the guards, I cannot think; but I am
+satisfied that Gambara himself had removed them.  He opened the wicket for
+me, and as I stepped out he gave me the paper and whistled softly.  Almost
+at once I heard a sound of muffled hooves under the colonnade, and
+presently loomed the figures of a man and a mule; both dim and ghostly in
+the pearly light of dawn--for that was the hour.
+
+Gambara followed me out, and pulled the wicket after him.
+
+"That beast is for you," he said curtly.  "It will the better enable you to
+get away."
+
+As curtly I acknowledged the gift, and mounted whilst the groom held the
+stirrup for me.
+
+0! it was the oddest of transactions!  My Lord Gambara with death in his
+heart very reluctantly giving me a life I did not want.
+
+I dug my heels into the mule's sides and started across the silent, empty
+square, then plunged into a narrow street where the gloom was almost as of
+midnight, and so pushed on.
+
+I came out into the open space before the Porta Fodesta, and so to the gate
+itself.  From one of the windows of the gatehouse, a light shone yellow,
+and, presently, in answer to my call, out came an officer followed by two
+men, one of whom carried a lanthorn swinging from his pike.  He held this
+light aloft, whilst the officer surveyed me.
+
+"What now?" he challenged.  "None passes out to-night."
+
+For answer I thrust the paper under his nose.  "Orders from my Lord
+Gambara," said I.
+
+But he never looked at it.  "None passes out to-night," he repeated
+imperturbably.  "So run my orders."
+
+"Orders from whom?" quoth I, surprised by his tone and manner.
+
+"From the Captain of Justice, if you must know.  So you may get you back
+whence you came, and wait till daylight."
+
+"Ah, but stay," I said.  "I do not think you can have heard me.  I carry
+orders from my Lord the Governor.  The Captain of Justice cannot overbear
+these."  And I shook the paper insistently.
+
+"My orders are that none is to pass--not even the Governor himself," he
+answered firmly.
+
+It was very daring of Cosimo, and I saw his aim.  He was, as Gambara had
+said, a very subtle gentleman.  He, too, had set his finger upon the pulse
+of the populace, and perceived what might be expected of it.  He was
+athirst for vengeance, as he had shown me, and determined that neither I
+nor Gambara should escape.  First, I must be tried, condemned, and hanged,
+and then he trusted, no doubt, that Gambara would be torn in pieces; and it
+was quite possible that Messer Cosimo himself would secretly find means to
+fan the mob's indignation against the Legate into fierce activity.  And it
+seemed that the game was in his hands, for this officer's resoluteness
+showed how implicitly my cousin was obeyed.
+
+Of that same resoluteness of the lieutenant's I was to have a yet more
+signal proof.  For presently, whilst still I stood there vainly
+remonstrating, down the street behind me rode Gambara himself on a tall
+horse, followed by a mule-litter and an escort of half a score of armed
+grooms.
+
+He uttered an exclamation when he saw me still there, the gate shut and the
+officer in talk with me.  He spurred quickly forward.
+
+"How is this?" he demanded haughtily and angrily.  "This man rides upon the
+business of the State.  Why this delay to open for him?"
+
+"My orders," said the lieutenant, civilly but firmly, "are that none passes
+out to-night."
+
+"Do you know me?" demanded Gambara.
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"And you dare talk to me of your orders?  There are no orders here in
+Piacenza but my orders.  Set me wide the wicket of that gate.  I myself
+must pass."
+
+"My lord, I dare not."
+
+"You are insubordinate," said the Legate, of a sudden very cold.
+
+He had no need to ask whose orders were these.  At once he saw the trammel
+spread for him.  But if Messer Cosimo was subtle, so, too, was Messer
+Gambara.  By not so much as a word did he set his authority in question
+with the officer.
+
+"You are insubordinate," was all he answered him, and then to the two
+men-at-arms behind the lieutenant--"Ho, there!" he called.  "Bring out the
+guard.  I am Egidio Gambara, your Governor."
+
+So calm and firm and full of assurance was his tone, so unquestionable his
+right to command them, that the men sprang instantly to obey him.
+
+"What would you do, my lord?" quoth the officer, and he seemed daunted.
+
+"Buffoon," said Gambara between his teeth.  "You shall see."
+
+Six men came hurrying from the gatehouse, and the Cardinal called to them.
+
+"Let the corporal stand forth," he said.
+
+A man advanced a pace from the rank they had hastily formed and saluted.
+
+"Place me your officer under arrest," said the Legate coldly, advancing no
+reason for the order.  "Let him be locked in the gatehouse until my return;
+and do you, sir corporal, take command here meanwhile."
+
+The startled fellow saluted again, and advanced upon his officer.  The
+lieutenant looked up with sudden uneasiness in his eyes.  He had gone too
+far.  He had not reckoned upon being dealt with in this summary fashion.
+He had been bold so long as he conceived himself no more than Cosimo's
+mouthpiece, obeying orders for the issuing of which Cosimo must answer.
+Instead, it seemed, the Governor intended that he should answer for them
+himself.  Whatever he now dared, he knew--as Gambara knew--that his men
+would never dare to disobey the Governor, who was the supreme authority
+there under the Pope.
+
+"My lord," he exclaimed, "I had my orders from the Captain of Justice."
+
+"And dare you to say that your orders included my messengers and my own
+self?" thundered the dainty prelate.
+
+"Explicitly, my lord," answered the lieutenant.
+
+"It shall be dealt with on my return, and if what you say is proved true,
+the Captain of Justice shall suffer with yourself for this treason--for
+that is the offence.  Take him away, and someone open me that gate."
+
+There was an end to disobedience, and a moment or two later we stood
+outside the town, on the bank of the river, which gurgled and flowed away
+smoothly and mistily in the growing light, between the rows of stalwart
+poplars that stood like sentinels to guard it.
+
+"And now begone," said Gambara curtly to me, and wheeling my mule I rode
+for the bridge of boats, crossed it, and set myself to breast the slopes
+beyond.
+
+Midway up I checked and looked back across the wide water.  The light had
+grown quite strong by now, and in the east there was a faint pink flush to
+herald the approaching sun.  Away beyond the river, moving southward, I
+could just make out the Legate's little cavalcade.  And then, for the first
+time, a question leapt in my mind concerning the litter whose leathern
+curtains had remained so closely drawn.  Whom did it contain?  Could it be
+Giuliana?  Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she had gone to
+Gambara for shelter?
+
+A little while ago I had sighed for death and exulted in the chance of
+expiation and of purging myself of the foulness of sin.  And now, at the
+sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate jealousy
+touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my downfall.
+0, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles in such poor
+natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the desire for wrong!
+
+It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things; in vain
+that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent resolves; in
+vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the confession at Fra
+Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance and make amends by
+the purity of all my after-life.  Vain was it all.
+
+I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking it,
+I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then away to
+the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.
+
+I must know.  I must!  It was no matter that conscience told me that here
+was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I was
+divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness.  I must
+know.  And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer Gambara,
+who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.
+
+I had no difficulty in following them.  A question here, and a question
+there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
+necessary to keep me on their track.  And ever, it seemed to me from the
+answers that I got, was I lessening the distance that separated us.
+
+I was weak for want of food, for the last time that I had eaten was
+yesterday at noon, at Mondolfo; and then but little.  Yet all I had this
+day were some bunches of grapes that I stole in passing from a vineyard and
+ate as I trotted on along that eternal Via Aemilia.
+
+It was towards noon, at last, that a taverner at Castel Guelfo informed me
+that my party had passed through the town but half an hour ahead of me.  At
+the news I urged my already weary beast along, for unless I made good haste
+now it might well happen that Parma should swallow up Gambara and his party
+ere I overtook them.  And then, some ten minutes later, I caught a flutter
+of garments half a mile or so ahead of me, amid the elms.  I quitted the
+road and entered the woodland.  A little way I still rode; then,
+dismounting, I tethered my mule, and went forward cautiously on foot.
+
+I found them in a little sunken dell by a tiny rivulet.  Lying on my belly
+in the long grass above, I looked down upon them with a black hatred of
+jealousy in my heart.
+
+They were reclining there, in that cool, fragrant spot in the shadow of a
+great beech-tree.  A cloth had been spread upon the ground, and upon this
+were platters of roast meats, white bread and fruits, and a flagon of wine,
+a second flagon standing in the brook to cool.
+
+My Lord Gambara was talking and she was regarding him with eyes that were
+half veiled, a slow, insolent smile upon her matchless face.  Presently at
+something that he said she laughed outright, a laugh so tuneful and light-
+hearted that I thought I must be dreaming all this.  It was the gay, frank,
+innocent laughter of a child; and I never heard in all my life a sound that
+caused me so much horror.  He leaned across to her, and stroked her velvet
+cheek with his delicate hand, whilst she suffered it in that lazy fashion
+that was so peculiarly her own.
+
+I stayed for no more.  I wriggled back a little way to where a clump of
+hazel permitted me to rise without being seen.  Thence I fled the spot.
+And as I went, my heart seemed as it must burst, and my lips could frame
+but one word which I kept hurling out of me like an imprecation, and that
+word was "Trull!"
+
+Two nights ago had happened enough to stamp her soul for ever with sorrow
+and despair.  Yet she could sit there, laughing and feasting and trulling
+it lightly with the Legate!
+
+The little that remained me of my illusions was shivered in that hour.
+There was, I swore, no good in all the world; for even where goodness
+sought to find a way, it grew distorted, as in my mother's case.  And yet
+through all her pietism surely she had been right!  There was no peace, no
+happiness save in the cloister.  And at last the full bitterness of
+penitence and regret overtook me when I reflected that by my own act I had
+rendered myself for ever unworthy of the cloister's benign shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ANCHORITE OF MONTE ORSARO
+
+
+I went blindly through the tangle of undergrowth, stumbling at every step
+and scarce noticing that I stumbled; and in this fashion I came presently
+back to my mule.
+
+I mounted and rode amain, not by the way that I had come, but westward; not
+by road, but by bridle-paths, through meadow-land and forest, up hill and
+down, like a man entranced, not knowing whither I went nor caring.
+
+Besides, whither was I to go?  Like my father before me I was an outcast, a
+fugitive outlaw.  But this troubled me not yet.  My mind, my wounded,
+tortured mind was all upon the past.  It was of Giuliana that I thought as
+I rode in the noontide warmth of that September day.  And never can human
+brain have held a sorer conflict of reflection than was mine.
+
+No shadow now remained of the humour that had possessed me in the hour in
+which I had repudiated her after the murder of Fifanti.  I had heard Fra
+Gervasio deliver judgment upon her, and I had doubted his justice, felt
+that he used her mercilessly.  My own sight had now confirmed to me the
+truth of what he had said; but in doing so--in allowing me to see her in
+another man's possession--a very rage of jealousy had been stirred in me
+and a greater rage of longing.
+
+This longing followed upon my first bitter denunciation of her; and it
+followed soon.  It is in our natures, as I then experienced, never more to
+desire a thing than when we see it lost to us.  Bitterly now did I reproach
+myself for not having borne her off with me two nights ago when I had fled
+Fifanti's house, when she herself had urged that course upon me.  I
+despised myself, out of my present want, for my repudiation of her--a
+hundred times more bitterly than I had despised myself when I imagined that
+I had done a vileness by that repudiation.
+
+Never until now, did it seem to me, had I known how deeply I loved her, how
+deeply the roots of our passion had burrowed down into my heart, and
+fastened there to be eradicated only with life itself.  So thought I then;
+and thinking so I cried her name aloud, called to her through the scented
+pine-woods, thus voicing my longing and my despair.
+
+And swift on the heels of this would come another mood.  There would come
+the consciousness of the sin of it all, the imperative need to cleanse
+myself of this, to efface her memory from my soul which could not hold it
+without sinning anew in fierce desire.  I strove to do so with all my poor
+weak might.  I denounced her to myself again for a soulless harlot; blamed
+her for all the ill that had befallen me; accounted her the very hand that
+had wielded me, a senseless instrument, to slay her importunate husband.
+
+And then I perceived that this was as pitiful a ruse of self-deception as
+that of the fox in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes above him.
+For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort of his will
+the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.
+
+Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
+ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came to
+the broad bed of a river.
+
+A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which was
+diminished by the long drought.  Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
+stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
+brown city upon the rising ground.
+
+The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the ancient
+boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk.  I stood upon the historic
+spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to win back to
+France after the occupation of Naples.  But the grotesque little king who
+had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my thoughts not at all
+just then.  The Taro brought me memories not of battle, but of home.  To
+reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up the valley towards that
+long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me, with the tall bulks of Mount
+Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps sparkling in the flood of sunshine
+that poured down upon them.  Two hours, or perhaps three at most, along the
+track of that cool, glittering water, and the grey citadel of Mondolfo
+would come into view.
+
+It was this very reflection that brought me now to consider my condition;
+to ask myself whither I should turn.  Money I had none--not so much as a
+single copper grosso.  To sell I had nothing but the clothes I stood
+in--black, clerkly garments that I had got yesterday at Mondolfo.  Not so
+much as a weapon had I that I might have bartered for a few coins.  There
+was the mule; that should yield a ducat or two.  But when this was spent,
+what then?  To go a suppliant to that pious icicle my mother were worse
+than useless.
+
+Whither was I to turn--I, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina, one of the
+wealthiest and most puissant tyrants of this Val di Taro?  It provoked me
+almost to laughter, of a fierce and bitter sort.  Perhaps some peasant of
+the contado would take pity on his lord and give him shelter and
+nourishment in exchange for such labour as his lord might turn his stout
+limbs to upon that peasant's land, which was my own.
+
+I might perhaps essay it.  Certainly it was the only thing that was left
+me.  For against my mother and to support my rights I might not invoke a
+law which had placed me under a ban, a law that would deal me out its
+rigours did I reveal myself.
+
+Then I had thoughts of seeking sanctuary in some monastery, of offering
+myself as a lay-brother, to do menial work, and in this way perhaps I might
+find peace, and, in a lesser degree than was originally intended, the
+comforts of the religion to which I had been so grossly unfaithful.  The
+thought grew and developed into a resolve.  It brought me some comfort.  It
+became a desire.
+
+I pushed on, following the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper,
+conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule was showing
+signs of weariness.
+
+Some three miles farther, having by then penetrated the green rampart of
+the foothills, I came upon the little village of Pojetta.  It is a village
+composed of a single street throwing out as its branches a few narrow
+alleys, possessing a dingy church and a dingier tavern; this last had for
+only sign a bunch of withered rosemary that hung above its grimy doors.
+
+I drew rein there as utterly weary as my mule, hungry and thirsty and weak.
+I got down and invited the suspicious scrutiny of the lantern-jawed
+taverner, who, for all that my appearance was humble enough in such
+garments as I wore, must have accounted me none the less of too fine an air
+for such a house as his.
+
+"Care for my beast," I bade him.  "I shall stay here an hour or two.
+
+He nodded surlily, and led the mule away, whilst I entered the tavern's
+single room.  Coming into it from the sunlight I could scarcely see
+anything at first, so dark did the place seem.  What light there was came
+through the open door; for the chamber's single window had long since been
+rendered opaque by a screen of accumulated dust and cobwebs.  It was a
+roomy place, low-ceilinged with blackened rafters running parallel across
+its dirty yellow wash.
+
+The floor was strewn with foul rushes that must have lain unchanged for
+months, slippery with grease and littered with bones that had been flung
+there by the polite guests the place was wont to entertain.  And it stank
+most vilely of rancid oil and burnt meats and other things indefinable in
+all but their acrid, nauseating, unclean pungency.
+
+A fire was burning low at the room's far end, and over this a girl was
+stooping, tending something in a stew-pot.  She looked round at my advent,
+and revealed herself for a tall, black-haired, sloe-eyed wench, comely in a
+rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms which were bared
+to the elbow.
+
+Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron.  She slouched
+forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled out a stool
+for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of the floor.
+
+Grouped about the upper end of this table sat four men of the peasant type,
+sun-tanned, bearded, and rudely garbed in loose jerkins and cross gartered
+leg cloths.
+
+A silence had fallen upon them as I entered, and they too were now
+inspecting me with a frank interest which in their simple way they made no
+attempt to conceal.
+
+I sank wearily to the stool, paying little heed to them, and in answer to
+the girl's invitation to command her, I begged for meat and bread and wine.
+Whilst she was preparing these, one of the men addressed me civilly; and I
+answered him as civilly but absently, for I had enough of other matters to
+engage my thoughts.  Then another of them questioned me in a friendly tone
+as to whence I came.  Instinctively I concealed the truth, answering
+vaguely that I was from Castel Guelfo--which was the neighbourhood in which
+I had overtaken my Lord Gambara and Giuliana.
+
+"And what do they say at Castel Guelfo of the things that are happening in
+Piacenza?" asked another.
+
+"In Piacenza?" quoth I.  "Why, what is happening in Piacenza?"
+
+Eagerly, with an ardour to show themselves intimate with the affairs of
+towns, as is the way of rustics, they related to me what already I had
+gathered to be the vulgar version of Fifanti's death.  Each spoke in turn,
+cutting in the moment another paused to breathe, and sometimes they spoke
+together, each anxious to have the extent of his information revealed and
+appreciated.
+
+And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of Fifanti's
+wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and had gone to
+visit her by night.  But that the suspicious Fifanti lying near by in wait,
+and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon after and attacked
+him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him.  And then that wily,
+fiendish prelate had sought to impose the blame upon the young Lord of
+Mondolfo, who was a student in the pedant's house, and he had caused the
+young man's arrest.  But this the Piacentini would not endure.  They had
+risen, and threatened the Governor's life; and he was fled to Rome or
+Parma, whilst the authorities to avoid a scandal had connived at the escape
+of Messer d'Anguissola, who was also gone, no man knew whither.
+
+The news had travelled speedily into that mountain fastness, it seemed.
+But it had been garbled at its source.  The Piacentini conceived that they
+held some evidence of what they believed--the evidence of the lad whom
+Fifanti had left to spy and who had borne him the tale that the Cardinal
+was within.  This evidence they accounted well-confirmed by the Legate's
+flight.
+
+Thus is history written.  Not a doubt but that some industrious scribe in
+Piacenza with a grudge against Gambara, would set down what was the talk of
+the town; and hereafter, it is not to be doubted, the murder of Astorre
+Fifanti for the vilest of all motives will be added to the many crimes of
+Egidio Gambara, that posterity may execrate his name even beyond its
+already rich enough deserts.
+
+I heard them in silence and but little moved, yet with a question now and
+then to probe how far this silly story went in detail.  And whilst they
+were still heaping abuse upon the Legate--of whom they spoke as Jews may
+speak of pork--came the lantern-jawed host with a dish of broiled goat,
+some bread, and a jug of wine.  This he set before me, then joined them in
+their vituperation of Messer Gambara.
+
+I ate ravenously, and for all that I do not doubt the meat was tough and
+burnt, yet at the time those pieces of broiled goat upon that dirty table
+seemed the sweetest food that ever had been set before me.
+
+Finding that I was but indifferently communicative and had little news to
+give them, the peasants fell to gossiping among themselves, and they were
+presently joined by the girl, whose name, it seemed, was Giovannozza.  She
+came to startle them with the rumour of a fresh miracle attributed to the
+hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+I looked up with more interest than I had hitherto shown in anything that
+had been said, and I inquired who might be this anchorite.
+
+"Sainted Virgin!" cried the girl, setting her hands upon her generous hips,
+and turning her bold sloe-eyes upon me in a stare of incredulity.  "Whence
+are you, sir, that you seem to know nothing of the world?  You had not
+heard the news of Piacenza, which must be known to everyone by now; and you
+have never heard of the anchorite of Monte Orsaro!"  She appealed by a
+gesture to Heaven against the Stygian darkness of my mind.
+
+"He is a very holy man," said one of the peasants.
+
+"And he dwells alone in a hut midway up the mountain," added a second.
+
+"In a hut which he built for himself with his own hands," a third
+explained.
+
+"And he lives on nuts and herbs and such scraps of food as are left him by
+the charitable," put in the fourth, to show himself as full of knowledge as
+his fellows.
+
+But now it was Giovannozza who took up the story, firmly and resolutely;
+and being a woman she easily kept her tongue going and overbore the
+peasants so that they had no further share in the tale until it was
+entirely told.  From her I learnt that the anchorite, one Fra Sebastiano,
+possessed a miraculous image of the blessed martyr St. Sebastian, whose
+wounds miraculously bled during Passion Week, and that there were no ills
+in the world that this blood would not cure, provided that those to whom it
+was applied were clean of mortal sin and imbued with the spirit of grace
+and faith.
+
+No pious wayfarer going over the Pass of Cisa into Tuscany but would turn
+aside to kiss the image and ask a blessing at the hands of the anchorite;
+and yearly in the season of the miraculous manifestation, great pilgrimages
+were made to the hermitage by folk from the Valleys of the Taro and
+Bagnanza, and even from beyond the Apennines.  So that Fra Sebastiano
+gathered great store of alms, part of which he redistributed amongst the
+poor, part of which he was saving to build a bridge over the Bagnanza
+torrent, in crossing which so many poor folk had lost their lives.
+
+I listened intently to the tale of wonders that followed, and now the
+peasants joined in again, each with a story of some marvellous cure of
+which he had direct knowledge.  And many and amazing were the details they
+gave me of the saint--for they spoke of him as a saint already--so that no
+doubt lingered in my mind of the holiness of this anchorite.
+
+Giovannozza related how a goatherd coming one night over the pass had heard
+from the neighbourhood of the hut the sounds of singing, and the music was
+the strangest and sweetest ever sounded on earth, so that it threw the poor
+fellow into a strange ecstasy, and it was beyond doubt that what he had
+heard was an angel choir.  And then one of the peasants, the tallest and
+blackest of the four, swore with a great oath that one night when he
+himself had been in the hills he had seen the hermit's hut all aglow with
+heavenly light against the black mass of the mountain.
+
+All this left me presently very thoughtful, filled with wonder and
+amazement.  Then their talk shifted again, and it was of the vintage they
+discoursed, the fine yield of grapes about Fontana Fredda, and the heavy
+crop of oil that there would be that year.  And then with the hum of their
+voices gradually receding, it ceased altogether for me, and I was asleep
+with my head pillowed upon my arms.
+
+It would be an hour later when I awakened, a little stiff and cramped from
+the uncomfortable position in which I had rested.  The peasants had
+departed and the surly-faced host was standing at my side.
+
+"You should be resuming your journey," said he, seeing me awake.  "It wants
+but a couple of hours to sunset, and if you are going over the pass it were
+well not to let the night overtake you."
+
+"My journey?" said I aloud, and looked askance at him.
+
+Whither, in Heaven's name, was I journeying?
+
+Then I bethought me of my earlier resolve to seek shelter in some convent,
+and his mention of the pass caused me to think now that it would be wiser
+to cross the mountains into Tuscany.  There I should be beyond the reach of
+the talons of the Farnese law, which might close upon me again at any time
+so long as I was upon Pontifical territory.
+
+I rose heavily, and suddenly bethought me of my utter lack of money.  It
+dismayed me for a moment.  Then I remembered the mule, and determined that
+I must go afoot.
+
+"I have a mule to sell," said I, "the beast in your stables."
+
+He scratched his ear, reflecting no doubt upon the drift of my
+announcement.  "Yes?" he said dubiously.  "And to what market are you
+taking it?"
+
+"I am offering it to you," said I.
+
+"To me?" he cried, and instantly suspicion entered his crafty eye and
+darkened his brow.  "Where got you the mule?" he asked, and snapped his
+lips together.
+
+The girl entering at that moment stood at gaze, listening.
+
+"Where did I get it?" I echoed.  "What is that to you?"
+
+He smiled unpleasantly.  "It is this to me: that if the bargelli were to
+come up here and discover a stolen mule in my stables, it would be an ill
+thing for me."
+
+I flushed angrily.  "Do you imply that I stole the mule?" said I, so
+fiercely that he changed his air.
+
+"Nay now, nay now," he soothed me.  "And, after all, it happens that I do
+not want a mule.  I have one mule already, and I am a poor man, and..."
+
+"A fig for your whines," said I.  "Here is the case.  I have no money--not
+a grosso.  So the mule must pay for my dinner.  Name your price, and let us
+have done."
+
+"Ha!" he fumed at me.  "I am to buy your stolen beast, am I?  I am to be
+frightened by your violence into buying it?  Be off, you rogue, or I'll
+raise the village and make short work of you.  Be off, I say!"
+
+He backed away as he spoke, towards the fireplace, and from the corner took
+a stout oaken staff.  He was a villain, a thieving rogue.  That much was
+plain.  And it was no less plain that I must submit, and leave my beast to
+him, or else perhaps suffer a worse alternative.
+
+Had those four honest peasants still been there, he would not have dared to
+have so borne himself.  But as it was, without witnesses to say how the
+thing had truly happened, if he raised the village against me how should
+they believe a man who confessed that he had eaten a dinner for which he
+could not pay?  It must go very ill with me.
+
+If I tried conclusions with him, I could break him in two notwithstanding
+his staff.  But there would remain the girl to give the alarm, and when to
+dishonesty I should have added violence, my case would be that of any
+common bandit.
+
+"Very well," I said.  "You are a dirty, thieving rascal, and a vile one to
+take advantage of one in my position.  I shall return for the mule another
+day.  Meanwhile consider it in pledge for what I owe you.  But see that you
+are ready for the reckoning when I present it."
+
+With that, I swung on my heel, strode past the big�eyed girl, out of that
+foul kennel into God's sweet air, followed by the ordures of speech which
+that knave flung after me.
+
+I turned up the street, setting my face towards the mountains, and trudged
+amain.
+
+Soon I was out of the village and ascending the steep road towards the Pass
+of Cisa that leads over the Apennines to Pontremoli.  This way had Hannibal
+come when he penetrated into Etruria some two thousand years ago.  I
+quitted the road and took to bridle-paths under the shoulder of the mighty
+Mount Prinzera.  Thus I pushed on and upward through grey-green of olive
+and deep enamelled green of fig-trees, and came at last into a narrow gorge
+between two great mountains, a place of ferns and moisture where all was
+shadow and the air felt chill.
+
+Above me the mountains towered to the blue heavens, their flanks of a green
+that was in places turned to golden, where Autumn's fingers had already
+touched those heights, in places gashed with grey and purple wounds, where
+the bare rock thrust through.
+
+I went on aimlessly, and came presently upon a little fir thicket, through
+which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters.  I stood at last upon
+the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty gorge which
+it had cloven itself between the hills.  Thence I looked down a long,
+wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun were slanting, and
+hazily in the distance I could see the russet city of Fornovo which I had
+earlier passed that day.  This torrent was the Bagnanza, and it effectively
+barred all passage.  So I went up, along its bed, scrambling over lichened
+rocks or sinking my feet into carpets of soft, yielding moss.
+
+At length, grown weary and uncertain of my way, I sank down to rest and
+think.  And my thoughts were chiefly of that hermit somewhere above me in
+these hills, and of the blessedness of such a life, remote from the world
+that man had made so evil.  And then, with thinking of the world, came
+thoughts of Giuliana.  Two nights ago I had held her in my arms.  Two
+nights ago!  And already it seemed a century remote--as remote as all the
+rest of that life of which it seemed a part.  For there had been a break in
+my existence with the murder of Fifanti, and in the past two days I had
+done more living and I had aged more than in all the eighteen years before.
+
+Thinking of Giuliana, I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of her
+hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous in their
+smile.  My spirit conjured her to stand before me all white and seductive
+as I had known her, and my longings were again upon me like a searing
+torture.
+
+I fought them hard.  I sought to shut that image out.  But it abode to mock
+me.  And then faintly from the valley, borne upon the breeze that came
+sighing through the fir-trees, rose the tinkle of an Angelus bell.
+
+I fell upon my knees and prayed to the Mother of Purity for strength, and
+thus I came once more to peace.  That done I crept under the shelter of a
+projecting rock, wrapped my cloak tightly about me, and lay down upon the
+hard ground to rest, for I was very weary.
+
+Lying there I watched the colour fading from the sky.  I saw the purple
+lights in the east turn to an orange that paled into faintest yellow, and
+this again into turquoise.  The shadows crept up those heights.  A star
+came out overhead, then another, then a score of stars to sparkle silvery
+in the blue-black heavens.
+
+I turned on my side, and closed my eyes, seeking to sleep; and then quite
+suddenly I heard a sound of unutterable sweetness--a melody so faint and
+subtle that it had none of the form and rhythm of earthly music.  I sat up,
+my breath almost arrested, and listened more intently.  I could still hear
+it, but very faint and distant.  It was as a sound of silver bells, and yet
+it was not quite that.  I remembered the stories I had heard that day in
+the tavern at Pojetta, and the talk of the mystic melodies by which
+travellers had been drawn to the anchorite's abode.  I noted the direction
+of the sound, and I determined to be guided by it, and to cast myself at
+the feet of that holy man, to implore of him who could heal bodies the
+miracle of my soul's healing and my mind's purging from its torment.
+
+I pushed on, then, through the luminous night, keeping as much as possible
+to the open, for under trees lesser obstacles were not to be discerned.
+The melody grew louder as I advanced, ever following the Bagnanza towards
+its source; and the stream, too, being much less turbulent now, did not
+overbear that other sound.
+
+It was a melody on long humming notes, chiefly, it seemed to me, upon two
+notes with the occasional interjection of a third and fourth, and, at long
+and rare intervals, of a fifth.  It was harmonious beyond all description,
+just as it was weird and unearthly; but now that I heard it more distinctly
+it had much more the sound of bells--very sweet and silvery.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, I was startled by a human cry--a piteous, wailing
+cry that told of helplessness and pain.  I went forward more quickly in the
+direction whence it came, rounded a stout hazel coppice, and stood suddenly
+before a rude hut of pine logs built against the side of the rock.  Through
+a small unglazed window came a feeble shaft of light.
+
+I halted there, breathless and a little afraid.  This must be the dwelling
+of the anchorite.  I stood upon holy ground.
+
+And then the cry was repeated.  It proceeded from the hut.  I advanced to
+the window, took courage and peered in.  By the light of a little brass oil
+lamp with a single wick I could faintly make out the interior.
+
+The rock itself formed the far wall of it, and in this a niche was
+carved--a deep, capacious niche in the shadows of which I could faintly
+discern a figure some two feet in height, which I doubted not would be the
+miraculous image of St. Sebastian.  In front of this was a rude wooden
+pulpit set very low, and upon it a great book with iron clasps and a
+yellow, grinning skull.
+
+All this I beheld at a single glance.  There was no other furniture in that
+little place, neither chair nor table; and the brass lamp was set upon the
+floor, near a heaped-up bed of rushes and dried leaves upon which I beheld
+the anchorite himself.  He was lying upon his back, and seemed a vigorous,
+able-bodied man of a good length.
+
+He wore a loose brown habit roughly tied about his middle by a piece of
+rope from which was suspended an enormous string of beads.  His beard and
+hair were black, but his face was livid as a corpse's, and as I looked at
+him he emitted a fresh groan, and writhed as if in mortal suffering.
+
+"0 my God!  My God!" I heard him crying.  "Am I to die alone?  Mercy!  I
+repent me!"  And he writhed moaning, and rolled over on his side so that he
+faced me, and I saw that his livid countenance was glistening with sweat.
+
+I stepped aside and lifted the latch of the rude door.
+
+"Are you suffering, father?" I asked, almost fearfully.  At the sound of my
+voice, he suddenly sat up, and there was a great fear in his eyes.  Then he
+fell back again with a cry.
+
+"I thank Thee, my God!  I thank Thee!"
+
+I entered, and crossing to his side, I went down on my knees beside him.
+
+Without giving me time to speak, he clutched my arm with one of his clammy
+hands, and raised himself painfully upon his elbow, his eyes burning with
+the fever that was in him.
+
+"A priest!" he gasped.  "Get me a priest!  Oh, if you would be saved from
+the flames of everlasting Hell, get me a priest to shrive me.  I am dying,
+and I would not go hence with the burden of all this sin upon my soul."
+
+I could feel the heat of his hand through the sleeve of my coat.  His
+condition was plain.  A raging fever was burning out his life.
+
+"Be comforted," I said.  "I will go at once."  And I rose, whilst he poured
+forth his blessings upon me.
+
+At the door I checked to ask what was the nearest place.
+
+"Casi," he said hoarsely.  "To your right, you will see the path down the
+hill-side.  You cannot miss it.  In half an hour you should be there.  And
+return at once, for I have not long.  I feel it."
+
+With a last word of reassurance and comfort I closed the door, and plunged
+away into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE RENUNCIATION
+
+
+I found the path the hermit spoke of, and followed its sinuous downhill
+course, now running when the ground was open, now moving more cautiously,
+yet always swiftly, when it led me through places darkened by trees.
+
+At the end of a half-hour I espied below me the twinkling lights of a
+village on the hill-side, and a few minutes later I was among the houses of
+Casi.  To find the priest in his little cottage by the church was an easy
+matter; to tell him my errand and to induce him to come with me, to tend
+the holy man who lay dying alone in the mountain, was as easy.  To return,
+however, was the most difficult part of the undertaking; for the upward
+path was steep, and the priest was old and needed such assistance as my own
+very weary limbs could scarcely render him.  We had the advantage of a
+lanthorn which he insisted upon bringing, and we made as good progress as
+could be expected.  But it was best part of two hours after my setting out
+before we stood once more upon the little platform where the hermit had his
+hut.
+
+We found the place in utter darkness.  Through lack of oil his little lamp
+had burned itself out; and when we entered, the man on the bed of wattles
+lay singing a lewd tavern-song, which, coming from such holy lips, filled
+me with horror and amazement.
+
+But the old priest, with that vast and doleful experience of death-beds
+which belongs to men of his class, was quick to perceive the cause of this.
+The fever was flickering up before life's final extinction, and the poor
+moribund was delirious and knew not what he said.
+
+For an hour we watched beside him, waiting.  The priest was confident that
+there would be a return of consciousness and a spell of lucidity before the
+end.
+
+Through that lugubrious hour I squatted there, watching the awful process
+of human dissolution for the first time.
+
+Save in the case of Fifanti I had never yet seen death; nor could it be
+said that I had really seen it then.  With the pedant, death had been a
+sudden sharp severing of the thread of life, and I had been conscious that
+he was dead without any appreciation of death itself, blinded in part by my
+own exalted condition at the time.
+
+But in this death of Fra Sebastiano I was heated by no participation.  I
+was an unwilling and detached spectator, brought there by force of
+circumstance; and my mind received from the spectacle an impression not
+easily to be effaced, an impression which may have been answerable in part
+for that which followed.
+
+Towards dawn at last the sick man's babblings--and they were mostly as
+profane and lewd as his occasional bursts of song--were quieted.  The
+unseeing glitter of his eyes that had ever and anon been turned upon us was
+changed to a dull and heavy consciousness, and he struggled to rise, but
+his limbs refused their office.
+
+The priest leaned over him with a whispered word of comfort, then turned
+and signed to me to leave the hut.  I rose, and went towards the door.  But
+I had scarcely reached it when there was a hoarse cry behind me followed by
+a gasping sob from the priest.  I started round to see the hermit lying on
+his back, his face rigid, his mouth open and idiotic, his eyes more leaden
+than they had been a moment since.
+
+"What is it?" I cried, despite myself.
+
+"He has gone, my son," answered the old priest sorrowfully.  "But he was
+contrite, and he had lived a saint."  And drawing from his breast a little
+silver box, he proceeded to perform the last rites upon the body from which
+the soul was already fled.
+
+I came slowly back and knelt beside him, and long we remained there in
+silent prayer for the repose of that blessed spirit.  And whilst we prayed
+the wind rose outside, and a storm grew in the bosom of the night that had
+been so fair and tranquil.  The lightning flashed and illumined the
+interior of that hut with a vividness as of broad daylight, throwing into
+livid relief the arrow-pierced St. Sebastian in the niche and the ghastly,
+grinning skull upon the hermit's pulpit.
+
+The thunder crashed and crackled, and the echoes of its artillery went
+booming and rolling round the hills, whilst the rain fell in a terrific
+lashing downpour.  Some of it finding a weakness in the roof, trickled and
+dripped and formed a puddle in the middle of the hut.
+
+For upwards of an hour the storm raged, and all the while we remained upon
+our knees beside the dead anchorite.  Then the thunder receded and
+gradually died away in the distance; the rain ceased; and the dawn crept
+pale as a moon-stone adown the valley.
+
+We went out to breathe the freshened air just as the first touches of the
+sun quickened to an opal splendour the pallor of that daybreak.  All the
+earth was steaming, and the Bagnanza, suddenly swollen, went thundering
+down the gorge.
+
+At sunrise we dug a grave just below the platform with a spade which I
+found in the hut.  There we buried the hermit, and over the spot I made a
+great cross with the largest stones that I could find.  The priest would
+have given him burial in the hut itself; but I suggested that perhaps there
+might be some other who would be willing to take the hermit's place, and
+consecrate his life to carrying on the man's pious work of guarding that
+shrine and collecting alms for the poor and for the building of the bridge.
+
+My tone caused the priest to look at me with sharp, kindly eyes.
+
+"Have you such thoughts for yourself, perchance?" he asked me.
+
+"Unless you should adjudge me too unworthy for the office," I answered
+humbly.
+
+"But you are very young, my son," he said, and laid a kindly hand upon my
+shoulder.  "Have you suffered, then, so sorely at the hands of the world
+that you should wish to renounce it and to take up this lonely life?"
+
+"I was intended for the priesthood, father," I replied.  "I aspired to holy
+orders.  But through the sins of the flesh I have rendered myself unworthy.
+Here, perhaps, I can expiate and cleanse my heart of all the foulness it
+gathered in the world."
+
+He left me an hour or so later, to make his way back to Casi, having heard
+enough of my past and having judged sufficiently of my attitude of mind to
+approve me in my determination to do penance and seek peace in that
+isolation.  Before going he bade me seek him out at Casi at any time should
+any doubts assail me, or should I find that the burden I had taken up was
+too heavy for my shoulders.
+
+I watched him go down the winding, mountain path, watched the bent old
+figure in his long black gaberdine, until a turn in the path and a clump of
+chestnuts hid him from my sight.
+
+Then I first tasted the loneliness to which on that fair morning I had
+vowed myself.  The desolation of it touched me and awoke self-pity in my
+heart, to extinguish utterly the faint flame of ecstasy that had warmed me
+when first I thought of taking the dead anchorite's place.
+
+I was not yet twenty, I was lord of great possessions, and of life I had
+tasted no more than one poisonous, reckless draught; yet I was done with
+the world--driven out of it by penitence.  It was just; but it was bitter.
+And then I felt again that touch of ecstasy to reflect that it was the
+bitterness of the resolve that made it worthy, that through its very
+harshness was it that this path should lead to grace.
+
+Later on I busied myself with an inspection of the hut, and my first
+attentions were for the miraculous image.  I looked upon it with awe, and I
+knelt to it in prayer for forgiveness for the unworthiness I brought to the
+service of the shrine.
+
+The image itself was very crude of workmanship and singularly ghastly.  It
+reminded me poignantly of the Crucifix that had hung upon the whitewashed
+wall of my mother's private dining-room and had been so repellent to my
+young eyes.
+
+From two arrow wounds in the breast descended two brown streaks, relics of
+the last miraculous manifestation.  The face of the young Roman centurion
+who had suffered martyrdom for his conversion to Christianity was smiling
+very sweetly and looking upwards, and in that part of his work the sculptor
+had been very happy.  But the rest of the carving was gruesome and the
+anatomy was gross and bad, the figure being so disproportionately broad as
+to convey the impression of a stunted dwarf.
+
+The big book standing upon the pulpit of plain deal proved, as I had
+expected, to be a missal; and it became my custom to recite from it each
+morning thereafter the office for the day.
+
+In a rude cupboard I found a jar of baked earth that was half full of oil,
+and another larger jar containing some cakes of maize bread and a handful
+of chestnuts.  There was also a brown bundle which resolved itself into a
+monkish habit within which was rolled a hair-shirt.
+
+I took pleasure in this discovery, and I set myself at once to strip off my
+secular garments and to don this coarse brown habit, which, by reason of my
+great height, descended but midway down my calves.  For lack of sandals I
+went barefoot, and having made a bundle of the clothes I had removed I
+thrust them into the cupboard in the place of those which I had taken
+thence.
+
+Thus did I, who had been vowed to the anchorite order of St. Augustine,
+enter upon my life as an unordained anchorite.  I dragged out the wattles
+upon which my blessed predecessor had breathed his last, and having swept
+the place clean with a bundle of hazel-switches which I cut for the
+purpose, I went to gather fresh boughs and rushes by the swollen torrent,
+and with these I made myself a bed.
+
+My existence became not only one of loneliness, but of grim privation.
+People rarely came my way, save for a few faithful women from Casi or Fiori
+who solicited my prayers in return for the oil and maize-cakes which they
+left me, and sometimes whole days would pass without the sight of a single
+human being.  These maize-cakes formed my chief nourishment, together with
+a store or nuts from the hazel coppice that grew before my door and some
+chestnuts which I went further afield to gather in the woods.
+Occasionally, as a gift, there would be a jar of olives, which was the
+greatest delicacy that I savoured in those days.  No flesh-food or fish did
+I ever taste, so that I grew very lean and often suffered hunger.
+
+My days were spent partly in prayer and partly in meditation, and I
+pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
+Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that great
+father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much sin as
+had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair.  And as yet I had
+received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed at Piacenza.
+I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do penance first, but
+the penance had never been imposed.  I was imposing it now.  All my life
+should I impose it thus.
+
+Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought appalled
+me, for I must not die in sin.
+
+So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I would
+send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my hermitage,
+and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HYPNEROTOMACHIA
+
+
+At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
+certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
+summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth.  But anon this changed and
+I would catch the thoughts that should have been bent upon pious meditation
+glancing backward with regretful longings at that life out of which I had
+departed.
+
+I would start up in a pious rage and cast out such thoughts by more
+strenuous prayer and still more strenuous fasting.  But as my body grew
+accustomed to the discomforts to which it was subjected, my mind assumed a
+rebellious freedom that clogged the work of purification upon which I
+strove to engage it.  My stomach out of its very emptiness conjured up evil
+visions to torment me in the night, and with these I vainly wrestled until
+I remembered the measures which Fra Gervasio told me that he had taken in
+like case.  I had then the happy inspiration to have recourse to the hair-
+shirt, which hitherto I had dreaded.
+
+It would be towards the end of October, as the days were growing colder,
+that I first put on that armour against the shafts of Satan.  It galled me
+horribly and fretted my tender flesh at almost every movement; but so at
+least, at the expense of the body, I won back to some peace of mind, and
+the flesh, being quelled and subdued, no longer interposed its evil humours
+to the purity I desired for my meditations.
+
+For upwards of a month, then, the mild torture of the goat's-hair cilice
+did the office I required of it.  But towards December, my skin having
+grown tough and callous from the perpetual irritation, and inured to the
+fretting of the sharp hair, my mind once more began to wander mutinously.
+To check it again I put off the cilice, and with it all other
+undergarments, retaining no more clothing than just the rough brown monkish
+habit.  Thus I exposed myself to the rigours of the weather, for it had
+grown very cold in those heights where I dwelt, and the snows were creeping
+nearer adown the mountain-side.
+
+I had seen the green of the valley turn to gold and then to flaming brown.
+I had seen the fire perish out of those autumnal tints, and with the
+falling of the leaves, a slow, grey, bald decrepitude covering the world.
+And to this had now succeeded chill wintry gales that howled and whistled
+through the logs of my wretched hut, whilst the western wind coming down
+over the frozen zone above cut into me like a knife's edge.
+
+And famished as I was I felt this coldness the more, and daily I grew
+leaner until there was little left of my erstwhile lusty vigour, and I was
+reduced to a parcel of bones held together in a bag of skin, so that it
+almost seemed that I must rattle as I walked.
+
+I suffered, and yet I was glad to suffer, and took a joy in my pain,
+thanking God for the grace of permitting me to endure it, since the greater
+the discomforts of my body, the more numbed became the pain of my mind, the
+more removed from me were the lures of longing with which Satan still did
+battle for my soul.  In pain itself I seemed to find the nepenthes that
+others seek from pain; in suffering was my Lethean draught that brought the
+only oblivion that I craved.
+
+I think that in those months my reason wandered a little under all this
+strain; and I think to-day that the long ecstasies into which I fell were
+largely the result of a feverishness that burned in me as a consequence of
+a chill that I had taken.
+
+I would spend long hours upon my knees in prayer and meditation.  And
+remembering how others in such case as mine had known the great boon and
+blessing of heavenly visions, I prayed and hoped for some such sign of
+grace, confident in its power to sustain me thereafter against all possible
+temptation.
+
+And then, one night, as the year was touching its end, it seemed to me that
+my prayer was answered.  I do not think that my vision was a dream;
+leastways, I do not think that I was asleep when it visited me.  I was on
+my knees at the time, beside my bed of wattles, and it was very late at
+night.  Suddenly the far end of my hut grew palely lucent, as if a
+phosphorescent vapour were rising from the ground; it waved and rolled as
+it ascended in billows of incandescence, and then out of the heart of it
+there gradually grew a figure all in white over which there was a cloak of
+deepest blue all flecked with golden stars, and in the folded hands a sheaf
+of silver lilies.
+
+I knew no fear.  My pulses throbbed and my heart beat ponderously but
+rapturously as I watched the vision growing more and more distinct until I
+could make out the pale face of ineffable sweetness and the veiled eyes.
+
+It was the Blessed Madonna, as Messer Pordenone had painted her in the
+Church of Santa Chiara at Piacenza; the dress, the lilies, the sweet pale
+visage, all were known to me, even the billowing cloud upon which one
+little naked foot was resting.
+
+I cried out in longing and in rapture, and I held out my arms to that sweet
+vision.  But even as I did so its aspect gradually changed.  Under the
+upper part of the blue mantle, which formed a veil, was spread a mass of
+ruddy, gleaming hair; the snowy pallor of the face was warmed to the tint
+of ivory, and the lips deepened to scarlet and writhed in a voluptuous
+smile; the dark eyes glowed languidly; the lilies faded away, and the pale
+hands were held out to me.
+
+"Giuliana!" I cried, and my pure and piously joyous ecstasy was changed
+upon the instant to fierce, carnal longings.
+
+"Giuliana!" I held out my arms, and slowly she floated towards me, over the
+rough earthen floor of my cell.
+
+A frenzy of craving seized me.  I was impatient to lock my arms once more
+about that fair sleek body.  I sought to rise, to go to meet her slow
+approach, to lessen by a second this agony of waiting.  But my limbs were
+powerless.  I was as if cast in lead, whilst more and more slowly she
+approached me, so languorously mocking.
+
+And then revulsion took me, suddenly and without any cause or warning.  I
+put my hands to my face to shut out a vision whose true significance I
+realized as in a flash.
+
+"Retro me, Sathanas!" I thundered.  "Jesus!  Maria!"
+
+I rose at last numbed and stiff.  I looked again.  The vision had departed.
+I was alone in my cell, and the rain was falling steadily outside.  I
+groaned despairingly.  Then I swayed, reeled sideways and lost all
+consciousness.
+
+When I awoke it was broad day, and the pale wintry sun shone silvery from a
+winter sky.  I was very weak and very cold, and when I attempted to rise
+all things swam round me, and the floor of my cell appeared to heave like
+the deck of a ship upon a rolling sea.
+
+For days thereafter I was as a man entranced, alternately frozen with cold
+and burning with fever; and but that a shepherd who had turned aside to ask
+the hermit's blessing discovered me in that condition, and remained, out of
+his charity, for some three days to tend me, it is more than likely I
+should have died.
+
+He nourished me with the milk of goats, a luxury upon which my strength
+grew swiftly, and even after he had quitted my hut he still came daily for
+a week to visit me, and daily he insisted that I should consume the milk he
+brought me, overruling my protests that my need being overpast there was no
+longer the necessity to pamper me.
+
+Thereafter I knew a season of peace.
+
+It was, I then reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a
+masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned the
+contest.  Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor glory
+in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse.  I thanked Heaven
+for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of its
+protection for a vessel so weak.
+
+And now the hill-side and valley began to put on the raiment of a new year.
+February, like a benignant nymph, tripped down by meadow and stream, and
+touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes.  And soon, where she had
+passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones, scarlet, blue and
+purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of spring in their tender
+harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling nardosmia waved their
+incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted by the streams.
+
+Then as birch and beech and oak and chestnut put forth a garb of tender
+pallid green, March advanced and Easter came on apace.
+
+But the approach of Easter filled me with a staggering dread.  It was in
+Passion Week that the miracle of the image that I guarded was wont to
+manifest itself.  What if through my unworthiness it should fail?  The fear
+appalled me, and I redoubled my prayers.  There was need; for spring which
+touched the earth so benignly had not passed me by.  And at moments certain
+longings for the world would stir in me again, and again would come those
+agonizing thoughts of Giuliana which I had conceived were for ever laid to
+rest, so that I sought refuge once more in the hair-shirt; and when this
+had once more lost its efficacy, I took long whip-like branches of tender
+eglantine to fashion a scourge with which I flagellated my naked body so
+that the thorns tore my flesh and set my rebellious blood to flow.
+
+One evening, at last, as I sat outside my hut, gazing over the rolling
+emerald uplands, I had my reward.  I almost fainted when first I realized
+it in the extremity of my joy and thankfulness.  Very faintly, just as I
+had heard it that night when first I came to the hermitage, I heard now the
+mystic, bell-like music that had guided my footsteps thither.  Never since
+that night had the sound of it reached me, though often I had listened for
+it.
+
+It came now wafted down to me, it seemed, upon the evening breeze, a sound
+of angelic chimes infinitely ravishing to my senses, and stirring my heart
+to such an ecstasy of faith and happiness as I had never yet known since my
+coming thither.
+
+It was a sign--a sign of pardon, a sign of grace.  It could be naught else.
+I fell upon my knees and rendered my deep and joyous thanks.
+
+And in all the week that followed that unearthly silver music was with me,
+infinitely soothing and solacing.  I could wander afield, yet it never left
+me, unless I chanced to go so near the tumbling waters of the Bagnanza that
+their thunder drowned that other blessed sound.  I took courage and
+confidence.  Passion Week drew nigh; but it no longer had any terrors for
+me.  I was adjudged worthy of the guardianship of the shrine.  Yet I
+prayed, and made St. Sebastian the special object of my devotions, that he
+should not fail me.
+
+April came, as I learnt of the stray visitors who, of their charity,
+brought me the alms of bread, and the second day of it was the first of
+Holy Week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+INTRUDERS
+
+
+It was on Holy Thursday that the image usually began to bleed, and it would
+continue so to do until the dawn of Easter Sunday.
+
+Each day now, as the time drew nearer, I watched the image closely, and on
+the Wednesday I watched it with a dread anxiety I could not repress, for as
+yet there was no faintest sign.  The brown streaks that marked the course
+of the last bleeding continued dry.  All that night I prayed intently, in a
+torture of doubt, yet soothed a little by the gentle music that was never
+absent now.
+
+With the first glint of dawn I heard steps outside the hut; but I did not
+stir.  By sunrise there was a murmur of voices like the muttering of a sea
+upon its shore.  I rose and peered more closely at the saint.  He was just
+wood, inanimate and insensible, and there was still no sign.  Outside, I
+knew, a crowd of pilgrims was already gathered.  They were waiting, poor
+souls.  But what was their waiting compared with mine?
+
+Another hour I knelt there, still beseeching Heaven to take mercy upon me.
+But Heaven remained unresponsive and the wounds of the image continued dry.
+
+I rose, at last, in a sort of despair, and going to the door of the hut, I
+flung it wide.
+
+The platform was filled with a great crowd of peasantry, and an overflow
+poured down the sides of it and surged up the hill on the right and the
+left.  At sight of me, so gaunt and worn, my eyes wild with despair and
+feverish from sleeplessness, a tangled growth of beard upon my hollow
+cheeks, they uttered as with one voice a great cry of awe.  The multitude
+swayed and rippled, and then with a curious sound as that of a great wind,
+all went down upon their knees before me--all save the array of cripples
+huddled in the foreground, brought thither, poor wretches, in the hope of a
+miraculous healing.
+
+As I was looking round upon that assembly, my eyes were caught by a flash
+and glitter on the road above us leading to the Cisa Pass.  A little troop
+of men-at-arms was descending that way.  A score of them there would be,
+and from their lance-heads fluttered scarlet bannerols bearing a white
+device which at that distance I could not make out.
+
+The troop had halted, and one upon a great black horse, a man whose armour
+shone like the sun itself, was pointing down with his mail-clad hand.  Then
+they began to move again, and the brightness of their armour, the
+fluttering pennons on their lances, stirred me strangely in that fleeting
+moment, ere I turned again to the faithful who knelt there waiting for my
+words.  Dolefully, with hanging head and downcast eyes, I made the dread
+announcement.
+
+"My children, there is yet no miracle."
+
+A deathly stillness followed the words.  Then came an uproar, a clamour, a
+wailing.  One bold mountaineer thrust forward to the foremost ranks, though
+without rising from his knees.
+
+"Father," he cried, "how can that be?  The saint has never failed to bleed
+by dawn on Holy Thursday, these five years past."
+
+"Alas!" I groaned, "I do not know.  I but tell you what is.  All night have
+I held vigil.  But all has been vain.  I will go pray again, and do you,
+too, pray."
+
+I dared not tell them of my growing suspicion and fear that the fault was
+in myself; that here was a sign of Heaven's displeasure at the impurity of
+the guardian of that holy place.
+
+"But the music!" cried one of the cripples raucously.  "I hear the blessed
+music!"
+
+I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen.  We all heard it pealing
+softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and a great cry went
+up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry that where one miracle
+was happening another must happen, that where the angelic choirs were
+singing all must be well.
+
+And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that I had
+seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage, having
+turned aside from the road.  At the foot of the hillock upon which my hut
+was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
+
+I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to see what
+unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian
+
+The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;
+then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight from it.
+
+All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon the bannerols
+was the head of a white horse.  By that device I knew them.  They were of
+the house of Cavalcanti--a house that had, as I had heard, been in alliance
+and great friendship with my father.  But that their coming hither should
+have anything to do with me or with that friendship I was assured was
+impossible.  Not a single soul could know of my whereabouts or the identity
+of the present hermit of Monte Orsaro.
+
+The pair advanced, leaving the troop below to await their return, and as
+they came I considered them, as did, too, the multitude.
+
+The man was of middle height, very broad and active, with long arms, to one
+of which the little lady clung for help up the steep path.  He had a proud,
+stern aquiline face that was shaven, so that the straight lines of his
+strong mouth and powerful length of jaw looked as if chiselled out of
+stone.  It was only at closer quarters that I observed how the general
+hardness of that countenance was softened by the kindliness of his deep
+brown eyes.  In age I judged him to be forty, though in reality he was
+nearer fifty.
+
+The little lady at his side was the daintiest maid that I had ever seen.
+The skin, white as a water-lily, was very gently flushed upon her cheeks;
+the face was delicately oval; the little mouth, the tenderest in all the
+world; the forehead low and broad, and the slightly slanting eyes--when she
+raised the lashes that hung over them like long shadows--were of the deep
+blue of sapphires.  Her dark brown hair was coifed in a jewelled net of
+thread of gold, and on her white neck a chain of emeralds sparkled
+sombrely.  Her close-fitting robe and her mantle were of the hue of bronze,
+and the light shifted along the silken fabric as she moved, so that it
+gleamed like metal.  About her waist there was a girdle of hammered gold,
+and pearls were sewn upon the back of her brown velvet gloves.
+
+One glance of her deep blue eyes she gave me as she approached; then she
+lowered them instantly, and so weak--so full of worldly vanities was I
+still that in that moment I took shame at the thought that she should see
+me thus, in this rough hermit's habit, my face a tangle of unshorn beard,
+my hair long and unkempt.  And the shame of it dyed my gaunt cheeks.  And
+then I turned pale again, for it seemed to me that out of nowhere a voice
+had asked me:
+
+"Do you still marvel that the image will not bleed?"
+
+So sharp and clear did those words arise from the lips of Conscience that
+it seemed to me as if they had been uttered aloud, and I looked almost in
+alarm to see if any other had overheard them.
+
+The cavalier was standing before me, and his brows were knit, a deep
+amazement in his eyes.  Thus awhile in utter silence.  Then quite suddenly,
+his voice a ringing challenge:
+
+"What is your name?" he said.
+
+"My name?" quoth I, astonished by such a question, and remarking now the
+intentness and surprise of his own glance.  "It is Sebastian," I answered,
+and truthfully, for that was the name of my adoption, the name I had taken
+when I entered upon my hermitage.
+
+"Sebastian of what and where?" quoth he.
+
+He stood before me, his back to the peasant crowd, ignoring them as
+completely as if they had no existence, supremely master of himself.  And
+meanwhile, the little lady on his arm stole furtive upward glances at me.
+
+"Sebastian of nowhere," I answered.  "Sebastian the hermit, the guardian of
+this shrine.  If you are come to..."
+
+"What was your name in the world?" he interrupted impatiently, and all the
+time his eyes were devouring my gaunt face.
+
+"The name of a sinner," answered I.  "I have stripped it off and cast it
+from me."
+
+An expression of impatience rippled across the white face
+
+"But the name of your father?" he insisted.
+
+"I have none," answered I.  "I have no kin or ties of any sort.  I am
+Sebastian the hermit."
+
+His lips smacked testily.  "Were you baptized Sebastian?" he inquired.
+
+"No," I answered him.  "I took the name when I became the guardian of this
+shrine."
+
+"And when was that?"
+
+"In September of last year, when the holy man who was here before me died."
+
+I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips.  He
+leaned towards me.  "Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?" he
+inquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.
+
+But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me by
+surprise.  I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member of
+the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so
+intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural.  I was convinced,
+moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the sight
+of that crowd of pilgrims.
+
+"Sir," I said, "I know not your intentions; but in all humility let me say
+that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import.  The world has
+done with me, and I with the world.  So that unless you are come hither out
+of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with God and molest me
+no further.  You come at a singularly inauspicious time, when I need all my
+strength to forget the world and my sinful past, that through me the will
+of Heaven may be done here."
+
+I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of great
+compassion and sweetness whilst I spoke.  I observed the pressure which she
+put on his arm.  Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was the sad
+firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say.  But he nodded
+shortly.
+
+"Well, well!" he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, the
+little lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which the
+crowd opened out for him.
+
+That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives of piety,
+they very plainly signified.  They feared that the intrusion at such a time
+of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficulties against the
+performance of the expected miracle.
+
+Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted and questioned
+one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage.  I did not hear the
+peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenly thrown up, and
+I caught his next question:
+
+"When did it last bleed?"
+
+Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice--"That would be
+before this young hermit came?  And to-day it will not bleed, you say?"
+
+He flashed me a last keen glance of his eyes, which had grown narrow and
+seemed laden with mockery.  The little lady whispered something to him, in
+answer to which he laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Fool's mummery," he snapped, and drew her on, she going, it seemed to me,
+reluctantly.
+
+But the crowd had heard him and the insult offered to the shrine.  A deep-
+throated bay rose up in menace, and some leapt to their feet as if they
+would attack him.
+
+He checked, and wheeled at the sound.  "How now?" he cried, his voice a
+trumpet-call, his eyes flashing terribly upon them; and as dogs crouch to
+heel at the angry bidding of their master, the multitude grew silent and
+afraid under the eyes of that single steel-clad man.
+
+He laughed a deep-throated laugh, and strode down the hill with his little
+lady on his arm.
+
+But when he had mounted and was riding off, the crowd, recovering courage
+from his remoteness, hurled its curses after him and shrilly branded him,
+"Derider!" and "Blasphemer!"
+
+He rode contemptuously amain, however, looking back but once, and then to
+laugh at them.
+
+Soon he had dipped out of sight, and of his company nothing was visible but
+the fluttering red pennons with the device of the white horse-head.
+Gradually these also sank and vanished, and once more I was alone with the
+crowd of pilgrims.
+
+Enjoining prayer upon them again, I turned and re-entered the hut.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE VISION
+
+
+Pray as we might, night came and still the image gave no sign.  The crowd
+melted away, with promises to return at dawn--promises that sounded almost
+like a menace in my ears.
+
+I was alone once more, alone with my thoughts and these made sport of me.
+It was not only upon the unresponsiveness of St. Sebastian that my mind now
+dwelt, nor yet upon the horrid dread that this unresponsiveness might be a
+sign of Heaven's displeasure, an indication that as a custodian of that
+shrine I was unacceptable through the mire of sin that still clung to me.
+Rather, my thoughts went straying down the mountain-side in the wake of
+that gallant company, that stern-faced man and that gentle-eyed little lady
+who had hung upon his arm.  Before the eyes of my mind there flashed again
+the brilliance of their arms, in my ears rang the thunder of their
+chargers' hooves, whilst the image of the girl in her shimmering, bronze-
+hued robe remained insistently.
+
+Theirs the life that should have been mine!  She such a companion as should
+have shared my life and borne me children of my own.  And I would burn with
+shame again in memory, as I had burnt in actual fact, to think that she
+should have beheld me in so unkempt and bedraggled a condition.
+
+How must I compare in her eyes with the gay courtiers who would daily hover
+in her presence and hang upon her gentle speech?  What thought of me could
+I hope should ever abide with her, as the image of her abode with me?  Or,
+if she thought of me at all, she must think of me just as a poor hermit, a
+man who had donned the anchorite's sackcloth and turned his back upon a
+world that for him was empty.
+
+It is very easy for you worldly ones who read, to conjecture what had
+befallen me.  I was enamoured.  In a meeting of eyes had the thing come to
+me.  And you will say that it is little marvel, considering the seclusion
+of all my life and particularly that of the past few months, that the first
+sweet maid I beheld should have wrought such havoc, and conquered my heart
+by the mere flicker of her lashes.
+
+Yet so much I cannot grant your shrewdness.
+
+That meeting was predestined.  It was written that she should come and tear
+the foolish bandage from my eyes, allowing me to see for myself that, as
+Fra Gervasio had opined, my vocation was neither for hermitage nor
+cloister; that what called me was the world; and that in the world must I
+find salvation since I was needed for the world's work.
+
+And none but she could have done that.  Of this I am persuaded, as you
+shall be when you have read on.
+
+The yearnings with which she filled my soul were very different from those
+inspired by the memory of Giuliana.  That other sinful longing, she
+entirely effaced at last, thereby achieving something that had been
+impossible to prayers and fasting, to scourge and cilice.  I longed for her
+almost beatifically, as those whose natures are truly saintly long for the
+presence of the blessed ones of Heaven.  By the sight of her I was purified
+and sanctified, washed clean of all that murk of sinful desire in which I
+had lain despite myself; for my desire of her was the blessed, noble desire
+to serve, to guard, to cherish.
+
+Pure was she as the pale narcissus by the streams, and serving her what
+could I be but pure?
+
+And then, quite suddenly, upon the heels of such thoughts came the
+reaction.  Horror and revulsion were upon me.  This was but a fresh snare
+of Satan's baiting to lure me to destruction.  Where the memory of Giuliana
+had failed to move me to aught but penance and increasing rigours, the foul
+fiend sought to engage me with a seeming purity to my ultimate destruction.
+Thus had Anthony, the Egyptian monk, been tempted; and under one guise or
+another it was ever the same Circean lure.
+
+I would make an end.  I swore it in a mighty frenzy of repentance, in a
+very lust to do battle with Satan and with my own flesh and a phrenetic joy
+to engage in the awful combat.
+
+I stripped off my ragged habit, and standing naked I took up my scourge of
+eglantine and beat myself until the blood flowed freely.  But that was not
+enough.  All naked as I was, I went forth into the blue night, and ran to a
+pool of the Bagnanza, going of intent through thickets of bramble and
+briar-rose that gripped and tore my flesh and lacerated me so that at times
+I screamed aloud in pain, to laugh ecstatically the next moment and
+joyfully taunt Satan with his defeat.
+
+Thus I tore on, my very body ragged and bleeding from head to foot, and
+thus I came to the pool in the torrent's course.  Into this I plunged, and
+stood with the icy waters almost to my neck, to purge the unholy fevers out
+of me.  The snows above were melting at the time, and the pool was little
+more than liquid ice.  The chill of it struck through me to the very
+marrow, and I felt my flesh creep and contract until it seemed like the
+rough hide of some fabled monster, and my wounds stung as if fire were
+being poured into them.
+
+Thus awhile; then all feeling passed, and a complete insensibility to the
+cold of the water or the fire of the wounds succeeded.  All was numbed, and
+every nerve asleep.  At last I had conquered.  I laughed aloud, and in a
+great voice of triumph I shouted so that the shout went echoing round the
+hills in the stillness of the night:
+
+"Satan, thou art defeated!"
+
+And upon that I crawled up the mossy bank, the water gliding from my long
+limbs.  I attempted to stand.  But the earth rocked under my feet; the
+blueness of the night deepened into black, and consciousness was
+extinguished like a candle that is blown out.
+
+       .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
+
+She appeared above me in a great effulgence that emanated from herself as
+if she were grown luminous.  Her robe was of cloth of silver and of a
+dazzling sheen, and it hung closely to her lissom, virginal form, defining
+every line and curve of it; and by the chaste beauty of her I was moved to
+purest ecstasy of awe and worship.
+
+The pale, oval face was infinitely sweet, the slanting eyes of heavenly
+blue were infinitely tender, the brown hair was plaited into two long
+tresses that hung forward upon either breast and were entwined with threads
+of gold and shimmering jewels.  On the pale brow a brilliant glowed with
+pure white fires, and her hands were held out to me in welcome.
+
+Her lips parted to breathe my name.
+
+"Agostino d'Anguissola!"  There were whole tomes of tender meaning in those
+syllables, so that hearing her utter them I seemed to learn all that was in
+her heart.
+
+And then her shining whiteness suggested to me the name that must be hers
+
+"Bianca!" I cried, and in my turn held out my arms and made as if to
+advance towards her.  But I was held back in icy, clinging bonds, whose
+relentlessness drew from me a groan of misery.
+
+"Agostino, I am waiting for you at Pagliano," she said, and it did not
+occur to me to wonder where might be this Pagliano of which I could not
+remember ever to have heard.  "Come to me soon."
+
+"I may not come," I answered miserably.  "I am an anchorite, the guardian
+of a shrine; and my life that has been full of sin must be given henceforth
+to expiation.  It is the will of Heaven."
+
+She smiled all undismayed, smiled confidently and tenderly.
+
+"Presumptuous!" she gently chid me.  "What know you of the will of Heaven?
+The will of Heaven is inscrutable.  If you have sinned in the world, in the
+world must you atone by deeds that shall serve the world--God's world.  In
+your hermitage you are become barren soil that will yield naught to
+yourself or any.  Come then from the wilderness.  Come soon!  I am
+waiting!"
+
+And on that the splendid vision faded, and utter darkness once more
+encompassed me, a darkness through which still boomed repeatedly the fading
+echo of the words:
+
+"Come soon!  I am waiting!"
+
+          .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
+
+I lay upon my bed of wattles in the hut, and through the little unglazed
+windows the sun was pouring, but the dripping eaves told of rain that had
+lately ceased.
+
+Over me was bending a kindly faced old man in whom I recognized the good
+priest of Casi.
+
+I lay quite still for a long while, just gazing up at him.  Soon my memory
+got to work of its own accord, and I bethought me of the pilgrims who must
+by now have come and who must be impatiently awaiting news.
+
+How came I to have slept so long?  Vaguely I remembered my last night's
+penance, and then came a black gulf in my memory, a gap I could not bridge.
+But uppermost leapt the anxieties concerning the image of St. Sebastian.
+
+I struggled up to discover that I was very weak; so weak that I was glad to
+sink back again.
+
+"Does it bleed?  Does it bleed yet?" I asked, and my voice was so small and
+feeble that the sound of it startled me.
+
+The old priest shook his head, and his eyes were very full of compassion.
+
+"Poor youth, poor youth!" he sighed.
+
+Without all was silent; there was no such rustle of a multitude as I
+listened for.  And then I observed in my cell a little shepherd-lad who had
+been wont to come that way for my blessing upon occasions.  He was half
+naked, as lithe as a snake and almost as brown.  What did he there?  And
+then someone else stirred--an elderly peasant-woman with a wrinkled kindly
+face and soft dark eyes, whom I did not know at all.
+
+Somehow, as my mind grew clearer, last night seemed ages remote.  I looked
+at the priest again.
+
+"Father," I murmured, "what has happened?"
+
+His answer amazed me.  He started violently.  Looked more closely, and
+suddenly cried out:
+
+"He knows me!  He knows me!  Deo gratias!"  And he fell upon his knees
+
+Now here it seemed to me was a sort of madness.  "Why should I not know
+you?" quoth I.
+
+The old woman peered at me.  "Ay, blessed be Heaven!  He is awake at last,
+and himself again."  She turned to the lad, who was staring at me,
+grinning.  "Go tell them, Beppo!  Haste!"
+
+"Tell them?" I cried.  "The pilgrims?  Ah, no, no--not unless the miracle
+has come to pass!"
+
+"There are no pilgrims here, my son," said the priest.
+
+"Not?" I cried, and cold horror descended upon me.  "But they should have
+come.  This is Holy Friday, father."
+
+"Nay, my son, Holy Friday was a fortnight ago."
+
+I stared askance at him, in utter silence.  Then I smiled half tolerantly.
+"But father, yesterday they were all here.  Yesterday was..."
+
+"Your yesterday, my son, is sped these fifteen days," he answered.  "All
+that long while, since the night you wrestled with the Devil, you have lain
+exhausted by that awful combat, lying there betwixt life and death.  All
+that time we have watched by you, Leocadia here and I and the lad Beppo."
+
+Now here was news that left me speechless for some little while.  My
+amazement and slow understanding were spurred on by a sight of my hands
+lying on the rude coverlet which had been flung over me.  Emaciated they
+had been for some months now.  But at present they were as white as snow
+and almost as translucent in their extraordinary frailty.  I became
+increasingly conscious, too, of the great weakness of my body and the great
+lassitude that filled me.
+
+"Have I had the fever?" I asked him presently.
+
+"Ay, my son.  And who would not?  Blessed Virgin! who would not after what
+you underwent?"
+
+And now he poured into my astonished ears the amazing story that had
+overrun the country-side.  It would seem that my cry in the night, my
+exultant cry to Satan that I had defeated him, had been overheard by a
+goatherd who guarded his flock in the hills.  In the stillness he
+distinctly heard the words that I had uttered, and he came trembling down,
+drawn by a sort of pious curiosity to the spot whence it had seemed to him
+that the cry had proceeded.
+
+And there by a pool of the Bagnanza he had found me lying prone, my white
+body glistening like marble and almost as cold.  Recognizing in me the
+anchorite of Monte Orsaro, he had taken me up in his strong arms and had
+carried me back to my hut.  There he had set about reviving me by friction
+and by forcing between my teeth some of the grape-spirit that he carried in
+a gourd.
+
+Finding that I lived, but that he could not arouse me and that my icy
+coldness was succeeded by the fire of fever, he had covered me with my
+habit and his own cloak, and had gone down to Casi to fetch the priest and
+relate his story.
+
+This story was no less than that the hermit of Monte Orsaro had been
+fighting with the devil, who had dragged him naked from his hut and had
+sought to hurl him into the torrent; but that on the very edge of the river
+the anchorite had found strength, by the grace of God, to overthrow the
+tormentor and to render him powerless; and in proof of it there was my body
+all covered with Satan's claw-marks by which I had been torn most cruelly.
+
+The priest had come at once, bringing with him such restoratives as he
+needed, and it is a thousand mercies that he did not bring a leech, or else
+I might have been bled of the last drops remaining in my shrunken veins.
+
+And meanwhile the goatherd's story had gone abroad.  By morning it was on
+the lips of all the country-side, so that explanations were not lacking to
+account for St. Sebastian's refusal to perform the usual miracle, and no
+miracle was expected--nor had the image yielded any.
+
+The priest was mistaken.  A miracle there had been.  But for what had
+chanced, the multitude must have come again confidently expecting the
+bleeding of the image which had never failed in five years, and had the
+image not bled it must have fared ill with the guardian of the shrine.  In
+punishment for his sacrilegious ministry which must be held responsible for
+the absence of the miracle they so eagerly awaited, well might the crowd
+have torn me limb from limb.
+
+Next the old man went on to tell me how three days ago there had come to
+the hermitage a little troop of men-at-arms, led by a tall, bearded man
+whose device was a sable band upon an argent field, and accompanied by a
+friar of the order of St. Francis, a tall, gaunt fellow who had wept at
+sight of me.
+
+"That would be Fra Gervasio!" I exclaimed.  "How came he to discover me?"
+
+"Yes--Fra Gervasio is his name," replied the priest.
+
+"Where is he now?" I asked.
+
+"I think he is here."
+
+In that moment I caught the sound of approaching steps.  The door opened,
+and before me stood the tall figure of my best friend, his eyes all
+eagerness, his pale face flushed with joyous excitement.
+
+I smiled my welcome.
+
+"Agostino!  Agostino!" he cried, and ran to kneel beside me and take my
+hand in his.  "0, blessed be God!" he murmured.
+
+In the doorway stood now another man, who had followed him--one whose face
+I had seen somewhere yet could not at first remember where.  He was very
+tall, so that he was forced to stoop to avoid the lintel of the low
+door--as tall as Gervasio or myself--and the tanned face was bearded by a
+heavy brown beard in which a few strands of grey were showing.  Across his
+face there ran the hideous livid scar of a blow that must have crushed the
+bridge of his nose.  It began just under the left eye, and crossed the face
+downwards until it was lost in the beard on the right side almost in line
+with the mouth.  Yet, notwithstanding that disfigurement, he still
+possessed a certain beauty, and the deep-set, clear, grey-blue eyes were
+the eyes of a brave and kindly man.
+
+He wore a leather jerkin and great thigh-boots of grey leather, and from
+his girdle of hammered steel hung a dagger and the empty carriages of a
+sword.  His cropped black head was bare, and in his hand he carried a cap
+of black velvet.
+
+We looked at each other awhile, and his eyes were sad and wistful, laden
+with pity, as I thought, for my condition.  Then he moved forward with a
+creak of leather and jingle of spurs that made pleasant music.
+
+He set a hand upon the shoulder of the kneeling Gervasio.
+
+"He will live now, Gervasio?" he asked.
+
+"0, he will live," answered the friar with an almost fierce satisfaction in
+his positive assurance.  "He will live and in a week we can move him hence.
+Meanwhile he must be nourished."  He rose.  "My good Leocadia, have you the
+broth?  Come, then, let us build up this strength of his.  There is haste,
+good soul; great haste!"  She bustled at his bidding, and soon outside the
+door there was a crackling of twigs to announce the lighting of a fire.
+And then Gervasio made known to me the stranger.
+
+"This is Galeotto," he said.  "He was your father's friend, and would be
+yours."
+
+"Sir," said I, "I could not desire otherwise with any who was my father's
+friend.  You are not, perchance, the Gran Galeotto?" I inquired,
+remembering the sable device on argent of which the priest had told me.
+
+"I am that same," he answered, and I looked with interest upon one whose
+name had been ringing through Italy these last few years.  And then, I
+suddenly realized why his face was familiar to me.  This was the man who in
+a monkish robe had stared so insistently at me that day at Mondolfo five
+years ago.
+
+He was a sort of outlaw, a remnant of the days of chivalry and free-lances,
+whose sword was at the disposal of any purchaser.  He rode at the head of a
+last fragment of the famous company that Giovanni de' Medici had raised and
+captained until his death.  The sable band which they adopted in mourning
+for that warrior, earned for their founder the posthumous title of Giovanni
+delle Bande Nere.
+
+He was called Il Gran Galeotto (as another was called Il Gran Diavolo) in
+play upon the name he bore and the life he followed.  He had been in bad
+odour with the Pope for his sometime association with my father, and he was
+not well-viewed in the Pontifical domains until, as I was soon to learn, he
+had patched up a sort of peace with Pier Luigi Farnese, who thought that
+the day might come when he should need the support of Galeotto's free-
+lances.
+
+"I was," he said, "your father's closest friend.  I took this at Perugia,
+where he fell," he added, and pointed to his terrific scar.  Then he
+laughed.  "I wear it gladly in memory of him."
+
+He turned to Gervasio, smiling.  "I hope that Giovanni d'Anguissola's son
+will hold me in some affection for his father's sake, when he shall come to
+know me better."
+
+"Sir," I said, "from my heart I thank you for that pious, kindly wish; and
+I would that I might fully correspond to it.  But Agostino d'Anguissola,
+who has been so near to death in the body, is, indeed, dead to the world
+already.  Here you see but a poor hermit named Sebastian, who is the
+guardian of this shrine."
+
+Gervasio rose suddenly.  "This shrine..." he began in a fierce voice, his
+face inflamed as with sudden wrath.  And there he stopped short.  The
+priest was staring at him, and through the open door came Leocadia with a
+bowl of steaming broth.  "We'll talk of this again," he said, and there was
+a sort of thunder rumbling in the promise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE ICONOCLAST
+
+
+It was a week later before we returned to the subject.
+
+Meanwhile, the good priest of Casi and Leocadia had departed, bearing with
+them a princely reward from the silent, kindly eyed Galeotto.
+
+To tend me there remained only the boy Beppo; and after my long six months
+of lenten fare there followed now a period of feasting that began to
+trouble me as my strength returned.  When, finally, on the seventh day, I
+was able to stand, and, by leaning on Gervasio's arm, to reach the door of
+the hut and to look out upon the sweet spring landscape and the green tents
+that Galeotto's followers had pitched for themselves in the dell below my
+platform, I vowed that I would make an end of broths and capons' breasts
+and trout and white bread and red wine and all such succulences.
+
+But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
+
+"There has been enough of this, Agostino," said he.  "You have gone near
+your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had been damned--
+deserving it for your folly if for naught else."
+
+I looked at him with surprise and reproach.  "How, Fra Gervasio?" I said.
+
+"How?" he answered.  "Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales of
+fights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's claws upon your
+body?  Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foul impostures of
+this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth of the country-
+side?"
+
+"Foul impostures?" I echoed, aghast.  "Fra Gervasio, your words are
+sacrilege."
+
+"Sacrilege?" he cried, and laughed bitterly.  "Sacrilege?  And what of
+that?"  And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.
+Sebastian in its niche.
+
+"You think because it did not bleed..." I began.
+
+"It did not bleed," he cut in, "because you are not a knave.  That is the
+only reason.  This man who was here before you was an impious rogue.  He
+was no priest.  He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy
+things, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk.  A black
+villain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when the
+end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money that he
+had extorted by his simonies."
+
+"My God!  Fra Gervasio, what do you say?  How dare you say so much?
+
+"Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?" he asked me
+sharply.  "Did you find any when you came hither?  No.  I'll take oath that
+you did not.  A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and had
+vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away to realms of
+bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said."
+
+Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door to
+do the office of a stool.
+
+"But he gave alms!" I cried, my senses all bewildered.
+
+"Dust in the eyes of fools.  No more than that.  That image--" his scorn
+became tremendous--"is an impious fraud, Agostino."
+
+Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible?  Could any man be
+so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that without
+fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
+
+I asked the question.  Gervasio smiled.
+
+"Your notions of God are heathen notions," he said more quietly.  "You
+confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer.  But He does not use His
+lightnings as did the father of Olympus.  And yet--reflect!  Consider the
+manner in which that brigand met his death."
+
+"But...but..." I stammered.  And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short, and
+listened.  "Hark, Fra Gervasio!  Do you not hear it?"
+
+"Hear it?  Hear what?"
+
+"The music--the angelic melodies!  And you can say that this place is a
+foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud!  And you a priest!
+Listen!  It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief."
+
+He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.
+
+"Angelic melodies!" he echoed with gentlest scorn.  "By what snares does
+the Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose!  That,
+boy--that is no more than the dripping of water into little wells of
+different depths, producing different notes.  It is in there, in some cave
+in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth."
+
+I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that my
+senses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion.  "The proof of that?  The
+proof!" I cried.
+
+"The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or while the
+river was swollen."
+
+That answer shattered my last illusion.  I looked back upon the time I had
+spent there, upon the despair that had beset me when the music ceased, upon
+the joy that had been mine when again I heard it, accepting it always as a
+sign of grace.  And it was as he said.  Not my unworthiness, but the rain,
+had ever silenced it.  In memory I ran over the occasions, and so clearly
+did I perceive the truth of this, that I marvelled the coincidence should
+not earlier have discovered it to me.
+
+Moreover, now that my illusions concerning it were gone, the sound was
+clearly no more than he had said.  I recognized its nature.  It might have
+intrigued a sane man for a day or a night.  But it could never longer have
+deceived any but one whose mind was become fevered with fanatic ecstasy.
+
+Then I looked again at the image in the niche, and the pendulum of my faith
+was suddenly checked in its counter-swing.  About that image there could be
+no delusions.  The whole country-side had witnessed the miracle of the
+bleeding, and it had wrought cures, wondrous cures, among the faithful.
+They could not all have been deceived.  Besides, from the wounds in the
+breast there were still the brown signs of the last manifestation.
+
+But when I had given some utterance to these thoughts Gervasio for only
+answer stooped and picked up a wood-man's axe that stood against the wall.
+With this he went straight towards the image.
+
+"Fra Gervasio!" I cried, leaping to my feet, a premonition of what he was
+about turning me cold with horror.  "Stay!" I almost screamed.
+
+But too late.  My answer was a crashing blow.  The next instant, as I sank
+back to my seat and covered my face, the two halves of the image fell at my
+feet, flung there by the friar.
+
+"Look!" he bade me in a roar.
+
+Fearfully I looked.  I saw.  And yet I could not believe.
+
+He came quickly back, and picked up the two halves.  "The oracle of Delphi
+was not more impudently worked," he said.  "Observe this sponge, these
+plates of metal that close down upon it and exert the pressure necessary to
+send the liquid with which it is laden oozing forth."  As he spoke he tore
+out the fiendish mechanism.  "And see now how ingeniously it was made to
+work--by pressure upon this arrow in the flank."
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the door.  I looked up, startled, to
+find Galeotto standing at my elbow.  So engrossed had I been that I had
+never heard his soft approach over the turf.
+
+"Body of Bacchus!" said he.  "Here is Gervasio become an image breaker to
+some purpose.  What now of your miraculous saint, Agostino?"
+
+My answer was first a groan over my shattered illusion, and then a deep-
+throated curse at the folly that had made a mock of me.
+
+The friar set a hand upon my shoulder.  "You see, Agostino, that your
+excursions into holy things do not promise well.  Away with you, boy!  Off
+with this hypocrite robe, and get you out into the world to do useful work
+for God and man.  Had your heart truly called you to the priesthood, I had
+been the first to have guided your steps thither.  But your mind upon such
+matters has been warped, and your views are all false; you confound
+mysticism with true religion, and mouldering in a hermitage with the
+service of God.  How can you serve God here?  Is not the world God's world
+that you must shun it as if the Devil had fashioned it?  Go, I say--and I
+say it with the authority of the orders that I bear--go and serve man, and
+thus shall you best serve God.  All else are but snares to such a nature as
+yours."
+
+I looked at him helplessly, and from him to Galeotto who stood there, his
+black brows knit; watching me with intentness as if great issues hung upon
+my answer.  And Gervasio's words touched in my mind some chord of memory.
+They were words that I had heard before--or something very like them,
+something whose import was the same.
+
+Then I groaned miserably and took my head in my hands.  "Whither am I to
+go?" I cried.  "What place is there in all the world for me?  I am an
+outcast.  My very home is held against me.  Whither, then, shall I go?"
+
+"If that is all that troubles you," said Galeotto, his tone unctuously
+humorous, "why we will ride to Pagliano."
+
+I leapt at the word--literally leapt to my feet, and stared at him with
+blazing eyes.
+
+"Why, what ails him now?" quoth he.
+
+Well might he ask.  That name--Pagliano--had stirred my memory so
+violently, that of a sudden as in a flash I had seen again the strange
+vision that visited my delirium; I had seen again the inviting eyes, the
+beckoning hands, and heard again the gentle voice saying, "Come to
+Pagliano!  Come soon!"
+
+And now I knew, too, where I had heard words urging my return to the world
+that were of the same import as those which Gervasio used.
+
+What magic was there here?  What wizardry was at play?  I knew--for they
+had told me--that it had been that cavalier who had visited me, that man
+whose name was Ettore de' Cavalcanti, who had borne news to them of one who
+was strangely like what Giovanni d'Anguissola had been.  But Pagliano had
+never yet been mentioned.
+
+"Where is Pagliano?" I asked.
+
+In Lombardy--in the Milanes," replied Galeotto.
+
+"It is the home of Cavalcanti."
+
+"You are faint, Agostino," cried Gervasio, with a sudden solicitude, and
+put an arm about my shoulders as I staggered.
+
+"No, no," said I.  "It is nothing.  Tell me--"  And I paused almost afraid
+to put the question, lest the answer should dash my sudden hope.  For it
+seemed to me that in this place of false miracles, one true miracle at
+least had been wrought; if it should be proved so indeed, then would I
+accept it as a sign that my salvation lay indeed in the world.  If not..."
+
+"Tell me," I began again; "this Cavalcanti has a daughter.  She was with
+him upon that day when he came here.  What is her name?"
+
+Galeotto looked at me out of narrowing eyes.
+
+"Why, what has that to do with anything?" quoth Gervasio.
+
+"More than you think.  Answer me, then.  What is her name?"
+
+"Her name is Bianca," said Caleotto.
+
+Something within me seemed to give way, so that I fell to laughing
+foolishly as women laugh who are on the verge of tears.  By an effort I
+regained my self-control.
+
+"It is very well," I said.  "I will ride with you to Pagliano."
+
+Both stared at me in utter amazement at the suddenness of my consent
+following upon information that, in their minds, could have no possible
+bearing upon the matter at issue.
+
+"Is he quite sane, do you think?" cried Galeotto gruffly.
+
+"I think he has just become so," said Fra Gervasio after a pause.
+
+"God give me patience, then," grumbled the soldier, and left me puzzled by
+the words.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+THE WORLD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PAGLIANO
+
+
+The lilac was in bloom when we came to the grey walls of Pagliano in that
+May of '45, and its scent, arousing the memory of my return to the world,
+has ever since been to me symbolical of the world itself.
+
+Mine was no half-hearted, backward-glancing return.  Having determined upon
+the step, I took it resolutely and completely at a single stride.  Since
+Galeotto placed his resources at my disposal, to be repaid him later when I
+should have entered upon the enjoyment of my heritage of Mondolfo, I did
+not scruple to draw upon them for my needs.
+
+I accepted the fine linen and noble raiment that he offered, and I took
+pleasure in the brave appearance that I made in them, my face shorn now of
+its beard and my hair trimmed to a proper length.  Similarly I accepted
+weapons, money, and a horse; and thus equipped, looking for the first time
+in my life like a patrician of my own lofty station, I rode forth from
+Monte Orsaro with Galeotto and Gervasio, attended by the former's troop of
+twenty lances.
+
+And from the moment of our setting out there came upon me a curious peace,
+a happiness and a great sense of expectancy.  No longer was I oppressed by
+the fear of proving unworthy of the life which I had chosen--as had been
+the case when that life had been monastic.
+
+Galeotto was in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with
+pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of my
+father ere all was done.
+
+The first act of my new life was performed as we were passing through the
+village of Pojetta.
+
+I called a halt before the doors of that mean hostelry, over which hung
+what no doubt would still be the same withered bunch of rosemary that had
+been there in autumn when last I went that way.
+
+To the sloe-eyed, deep-bosomed girl who lounged against the door-post to
+see so fine a company ride by, I gave an order to fetch the taverner.  He
+came with a slouch, a bent back, and humble, timid eyes--a very different
+attitude from that which he had last adopted towards me.
+
+"Where is my mule, you rogue?" quoth I.
+
+He looked at me askance.  "Your mule, magnificent?  said he.
+
+"You have forgotten me, I think--forgotten the lad in rusty black who rode
+this way last autumn and whom you robbed."
+
+At the words be turned a sickly yellow, and fell to trembling and babbling
+protestations and excuses.
+
+"Have done," I broke in.  "You would not buy the mule then.  You shall buy
+it now, and pay for it with interest."
+
+"What is this, Agostino?" quoth Galeotto at my elbow.  "An act of justice,
+sir," I answered shortly, whereupon he questioned me no further, but looked
+on with a grim smile.  Then to the taverner, "Your manners to-day are not
+quite the same as on the last occasion when we met.  I spare you the
+gallows that you may live to profit by the lesson of your present near
+escape.  And now, rogue, ten ducats for that mule."  And I held out my
+hand.
+
+"Ten ducats!" he cried, and gathering courage perhaps since he was not to
+hang.  "It is twice the value of the beast," he protested.
+
+"I know," I said.  "It will be five ducats for the mule, and five for your
+life.  I am merciful to rate the latter as cheaply as it deserves.  Come,
+thief, the ten ducats without more ado, or I'll burn your nest of infamy
+and hang you above the ruins."
+
+He cowered and shrivelled.  Then he scuttled within doors to fetch the
+money, whilst Galeotto laughed deep in his throat.
+
+"You are well-advised," said I, when the rogue returned and handed me the
+ducats.  "I told you I should come back to present my reckoning.  Be warned
+by this."
+
+As we rode on Galeotto laughed again.  "Body of Satan!  There is a
+thoroughness about you, Agustino.  As a hermit you did not spare yourself;
+and now as a tyrant you do not seem likely to spare others."
+
+"It is the Anguissola way," said Gervasio quietly.
+
+"You mistake," said I.  "I conceive myself in the world for some good
+purpose, and the act you have witnessed is a part of it.  It was not a
+revengeful deed.  Vengeance would have taken a harsher course.  It was
+justice, and justice is righteous."
+
+"Particularly a justice that puts ten ducats in your pocket," laughed
+Galeotto.
+
+"There, again, you mistake me," said I.  "My aim is that thieves be mulcted
+to the end that the poor shall profit."  And I drew rein again.
+
+A little crowd had gathered about us, mostly of very ragged, half-clad
+people, for this village of Pojetta was a very poverty-stricken place.
+Into that little crowd I flung the ten ducats--with the consequence that on
+the instant it became a seething, howling, snarling, quarrelling mass.  In
+the twinkling of an eye a couple of heads were cracked and blood was
+flowing, so that to quell the riot my charity had provoked, I was forced to
+spur my horse forward and bid them with threats disperse.
+
+And I think now," said Galeotto when it was done, "that you are just as
+reckless in the manner of doing charity.  For the future, Agostino, you
+would do well to appoint an almoner."
+
+I bit my lip in vexation; but soon I smiled again.  Were such little things
+to fret me?  Did we not ride to Pagliano and to Bianca de' Cavalcanti?  At
+the very thought my pulses would quicken, and a sweetness of anticipation
+would invade my soul, to be clouded at moments by an indefinable dread.
+
+And thus we came to Pagliano in that month of May, when the lilac was in
+bloom, as I have said, and after Fra Gervasio had left us, to return to his
+convent at Piacenza.
+
+We were received in the courtyard of that mighty fortress by that sturdy,
+hawk-faced man who had recognized me in the hermitage on Monte Orsaro.  But
+he was no longer in armour.  He wore a surcoat of yellow velvet, and his
+eyes were very kindly and affectionate when they rested on Galeotto and
+from Galeotto passed on to take survey of me.
+
+"So this is our hermit!" quoth he, a note of some surprise in his crisp
+tones.  "Somewhat changed!"
+
+"By a change that goes deeper than his pretty doublet," said Galeotto.
+
+We dismounted, and grooms, in the Cavalcanti livery of scarlet with the
+horse-head in white upon their breasts, led away our horses.  The seneschal
+acted as quarter�master to our lances, whilst Cavalcanti himself led us up
+the great stone staircase with its carved balustrade of marble, from which
+rose a file of pillars to support the groined ceiling.  This last was
+frescoed in dull red with the white horse-head at intervals.  On our right,
+on every third step, stood orange-trees in tubs, all flowering and shedding
+the most fragrant perfume.
+
+Thus we ascended to a spacious gallery, and through a succession of
+magnificent rooms we came to the noble apartments that had been made ready
+for us.
+
+A couple of pages came to tend me, bringing perfumed water and macerated
+herbs for my ablutions.  These performed, they helped me into fresh
+garments that awaited me--black hose of finest silk and velvet trunks of
+the same sable hue, and for my body a fine close-fitting doublet of cloth
+of gold, caught at the waist by a jewelled girdle from which hung a dagger
+that was the merest toy.
+
+When I was ready they went before me, to lead the way to what they called
+the private dining-room, where supper awaited us.  At the very mention of a
+private dining-room I had a vision of whitewashed walls and high-set
+windows and a floor strewn with rushes.  Instead we came into the most
+beautiful chamber that I had ever seen.  From floor to ceiling it was hung
+with arras of purple brocade alternating with cloth of gold; thus on three
+sides.  On the fourth there was an opening for the embayed window which
+glowed like a gigantic sapphire in the deepening twilight.
+
+The floor was spread with a carpet of the ruddy purple of porphyry, very
+soft and silent to the feet.  From the frescoed ceiling, where a joyous
+Phoebus drove a team of spirited white stallions, hung a chain that was
+carved in the semblance of interlocked Titans to support a great
+candelabrum, each branch of which was in the image of a Titan holding a
+stout candle of scented wax.  It was all in gilded bronze and the
+workmanship--as I was presently to learn--of that great artist and rogue
+Benvenuto Cellini.  From this candelabrum there fell upon the board a soft
+golden radiance that struck bright gleams from crystals and plate of gold
+and silver.
+
+By a buffet laden with meats stood the master of the household in black
+velvet, his chain of office richly carved, his badge a horse's head in
+silver, and he was flanked on either hand by a nimble-looking page.
+
+Of all this my first glance gathered but the most fleeting of impressions.
+For my eyes were instantly arrested by her who stood between Cavalcanti and
+Galeotto, awaiting my arrival.  And, miracle of miracles, she was arrayed
+exactly as I had seen her in my vision.
+
+Her supple maiden body was sheathed in a gown of cloth of silver; her brown
+hair was dressed into two plaits interlaced with gold threads and set with
+tiny gems, and these plaits hung one on either breast.  Upon the low, white
+brow a single jewel gleamed--a brilliant of the very whitest fire.
+
+Her long blue eyes were raised to look at me as I entered, and their glance
+grew startled when it encountered mine, the delicate colour faded gradually
+from her cheeks, and her eyes fell at last as she moved forward to bid me
+welcome to Pagliano in her own name.
+
+They must have perceived her emotion as they perceived mine.  But they gave
+no sign.  We got to the round table--myself upon Cavalcanti's left,
+Galeotto in the place of honour, and Bianca facing her father so that I was
+on her right.
+
+The seneschal bestirred himself, and the silken ministering pages fluttered
+round us.  My Lord of Pagliano was one who kept a table as luxurious as all
+else in his splendid palace.  First came a broth of veal in silver basins,
+then a stew of cocks' combs and capons' breasts, then the ham of a roasted
+boar, the flesh very lusciously saturated with the flavour of rosemary; and
+there was venison that was as soft as velvet, and other things that I no
+longer call to mind.  And to drink there was a fragrant, well-sunned wine
+of Lombardy that had been cooled in snow.
+
+Galeotto ate enormously, Cavalcanti daintily, I but little, and Bianca
+nothing.  Her presence had set up such emotions in me that I had no thought
+for food.  But I drank deeply, and so came presently to a spurious ease
+which enabled me to take my share in the talk that was toward, though when
+all is said it was but a slight share, since Cavalcanti and Galeotto
+discoursed of matters wherein my knowledge was not sufficient to enable me
+to bear a conspicuous part.
+
+More than once I was on the point of addressing Bianca herself, but always
+courage failed me.  I had ever in mind the memory she must have of me as
+she had last seen me, to increase the painful diffidence which her presence
+itself imposed upon me.  Nor did I hear her voice more than once or twice
+when she demurely answered such questions as her father set her.  And
+though once or twice I found her stealing a look at me, she would instantly
+avert her eyes when our glances crossed.
+
+Thus was our first meeting, and for a little time it was to be our last,
+because I lacked the courage to seek her out.  She had her own apartments
+at Pagliano with her own maids of honour, like a princess; and the castle
+garden was entirely her domain into which even her father seldom intruded.
+He gave me the freedom of it; but it was a freedom of which I never took
+advantage in the week that we abode there.  Several times was I on the
+point of doing so.  But I was ever restrained by my unconquerable
+diffidence.
+
+And there was something else to impose restraint upon me.  Hitherto the
+memory of Giuliana had come to haunt me in my hermitage, by arousing in me
+yearnings which I had to combat with fasting and prayer, with scourge and
+dice.  Now the memory of her haunted me again; but in a vastly different
+way.  It haunted me with the reminder of all the sin in which through her I
+had steeped myself; and just as the memory of that sin had made me in purer
+moments deem myself unworthy to be the guardian of the shrine on Monte
+Orsaro, so now did it cause me to deem myself all unworthy to enter the
+garden that enshrined Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti.
+
+Before the purity that shone from her I recoiled in an awe whose nature was
+as the feelings of a religion.  I felt that to seek her presence would be
+almost to defile her.  And so I abstained, my mind very full of her the
+while, for all that the time was beguiled for me in daily exercise with
+horse and arms under the guidance of Galeotto.
+
+I was not so tutored merely for the sake of repairing a grave omission in
+my education.  It had a definite scope, as Galeotto frankly told me,
+informing me that the time approached in which to avenge my father and
+strike a blow for my own rights.
+
+And then at the end of a week a man rode into the courtyard of Pagliano one
+day, and flung down from his horse shouting to be led to Messer Galeotto.
+There was something about this courier's mien and person that awoke a
+poignant memory.  I was walking in the gallery when the clatter of his
+advent drew my attention, and his voice sent a strange thrill through me.
+
+One glance I gave to make quite sure, and then I leapt down the broad steps
+four at a time, and a moment later, to the amazement of all present, I had
+caught the dusty rider in my arms, and I was kissing the wrinkled, scarred,
+and leathery old cheeks.
+
+"Falcone!" I cried.  "Falcone, do you not know me?"
+
+He was startled by the violence of my passionate onslaught.  Indeed, he was
+almost borne to the ground by it, for his old legs were stiff now from
+riding.
+
+And then--how he stared!  What oaths he swore!
+
+"Madonnino!" he babbled.  "Madonnino!"  And he shook himself free of my
+embrace, and stood back that he might view me.  "Body of Satan!  But you
+are finely grown, and how like to what your father was when he was no older
+than are you!  And they have not made a shaveling of you, after all.  Now
+blessed be God for that!"  Then he stopped short, and his eyes went past
+me, and he seemed to hesitate.
+
+I turned, and there, leaning on the balustrade of the staircase, looking on
+with smiling eyes stood Galeotto with Messer Cavalcanti at his elbow.
+
+I heard Galeotto's words to the Lord of Pagliano.  "His heart is sound--
+which is a miracle.  That woman, it seems, could not quite dehumanize him."
+And he came down heavily, to ask Falcone what news he bore.
+
+The old equerry drew a letter from under his leathern jacket.
+
+"From Ferrante?" quoth the Lord of Pagliano eagerly, peering over
+Galeotto's shoulder.
+
+"Ay," said Galeotto, and he broke the seal.  He stood to read, with knitted
+brows.  "It is well," he said, at last, and passed the sheet to Cavalcanti.
+"Farnese is in Piacenza already, and the Pope will sway the College to give
+his bastard the ducal crown.  It is time we stirred."
+
+He turned to Falcone, whilst Cavalcanti read the letter.  "Take food and
+rest, good Gino.  For to-morrow you ride again with me.  And so shall you,
+Agostino."
+
+"I ride again?" I echoed, my heart sinking and some of my dismay showing
+upon my face.  "Whither?"
+
+"To right the wrongs of Mondolfo," he answered shortly, and turned away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE GOVERNOR OF MILAN
+
+
+We rode again upon the morrow as he had said, and with us went Falcone and
+the same goodly company of twenty lances that had escorted me from Monte
+Orsaro.  But I took little thought for them or pride in such an escort now.
+My heart was leaden.  I had not seen Bianca again ere I departed, and
+Heaven knew when we should return to Pagliano.  Thus at least was I
+answered by Galeotto when I made bold to ask the question.
+
+Two days we rode, going by easy stages, and came at last upon that
+wondrously fair and imposing city of Milan, in the very heart of the vast
+plain of Lombardy with the distant Alps for background and northern
+rampart.
+
+Our destination was the castle; and in a splendid ante-chamber, packed with
+rustling, silken courtiers and clanking captains in steel, a sprinkling of
+prelates and handsome, insolent-eyed women, more than one of whom reminded
+me of Giuliana, and every one of whom I disparaged by comparing her with
+Bianca, Galeotto and I stood waiting.
+
+To many there he seemed known, and several came to greet him and some to
+whisper in his ear.  At last a pert boy in a satin suit that was striped in
+the Imperial livery of black and yellow, pushed his way through the throng.
+
+"Messer Galeotto," his shrill voice announced, "his excellency awaits you."
+
+Galeotto took my arm, and drew me forward with him.  Thus we went through a
+lane that opened out before us in that courtly throng, and came to a
+curtained door.  An usher raised the curtain for us at a sign from the
+page, who, opening, announced us to the personage within.
+
+We stood in a small closet, whose tall, slender windows overlooked the
+courtyard, and from the table, on which there was a wealth of parchments,
+rose a very courtly gentleman to receive us out of a gilded chair, the arms
+of which were curiously carved into the shape of serpents' heads.
+
+He was a well-nourished, florid man of middle height, with a resolute
+mouth, high cheek-bones, and crafty, prominent eyes that reminded me
+vaguely of the eyes of the taverner of Pojetta.  He was splendidly dressed
+in a long gown of crimson damask edged with lynx fur, and the fingers of
+his fat hands and one of his thumbs were burdened with jewels.
+
+This was Ferrante Gonzaga, Prince of Molfetta, Duke of Ariano, the
+Emperor's Lieutenant and Governor of the State of Milan.
+
+The smile with which he had been ready to greet Galeotto froze slightly at
+sight of me.  But before he could voice the question obviously in his mind
+my companion had presented me.
+
+"Here, my lord, is one upon whom I trust that we may count when the time
+comes.  This is Agostino d'Anguissola, of Mondolfo and Carmina."
+
+Surprise overspread Gonzaga's face.  He seemed about to speak, and checked,
+and his eyes were very searchingly bent upon Galeotto's face, which
+remained inscrutable as stone.  Then the Governor looked at me, and from me
+back again at Galeotto.  At last he smiled, whilst I bowed before him, but
+very vaguely conscious of what might impend.
+
+"The time," he said, "seems to be none too distant.  The Duke of Castro--
+this Pier Luigi Farnese--is so confident of ultimate success that already
+he has taken up his residence in Piacenza, and already, I am informed, is
+being spoken of as Duke of Parma and Piacenza."
+
+"He has cause," said Galeotto.  "Who is to withstand his election since the
+Emperor, like Pilate, has washed his hands of the affair?"
+
+A smile overspread Gonzaga's crafty face.  "Do not assume too much
+concerning the Emperor's wishes in the matter.  His answer to the Pope was
+that if Parma and Piacenza are Imperial fiefs--integral parts of the State
+of Milan--it would ill become the Emperor to alienate them from an empire
+which he holds merely in trust; whereas if they can be shown rightly to
+belong to the Holy See, why then the matter concerns him not, and the Holy
+See may settle it."
+
+Galeotto shrugged and his face grew dark.  "It amounts to an assent," he
+said.
+
+"Not so," purred Gonzaga, seating himself once more.  "It amounts to
+nothing.  It is a Sibylline answer which nowise prejudices what he may do
+in future.  We still hope," he added, "that the Sacred College may refuse
+the investiture.  Pier Luigi Farnese is not in good odour in the Curia."
+
+"The Sacred College cannot withstand the Pope's desires.  He has bribed it
+with the undertaking to restore Nepi and Camerino to the States of the
+Church in exchange for Parma and Piacenza, which are to form a State for
+his son.  How long, my lord, do you think the College will resist him?"
+
+"The Spanish Cardinals all have the Emperor's desires at heart."
+
+"The Spanish Cardinals may oppose the measure until they choke themselves
+with their vehemence," was the ready answer.  "There are enough of the
+Pope's creatures to carry the election, and if there were not it would be
+his to create more until there should be sufficient for his purpose.  It is
+an old subterfuge."
+
+"Well, then," said Gonzaga, smiling, "since you are so assured, it is for
+you and the nobles of Piacenza to be up and doing.  The Emperor depends
+upon you; and you may depend upon him."
+
+Galeotto looked at the Governor out of his scarred face, and his eyes were
+very grave.
+
+"I had hoped otherwise," he said.  "That is why I have been slow to move.
+That is why I have waited, why I have even committed the treachery of
+permitting Pier Luigi to suppose me ready at need to engage in his
+service."
+
+"Ah, there you play a dangerous game," said Gonzaga frankly.
+
+"I'll play a more dangerous still ere I have done," he answered stoutly.
+"Neither Pope nor Devil shall dismay me.  I have great wrongs to right, as
+none knows better than your excellency, and if my life should go in the
+course of it, why"--he shrugged and sneered--"it is all that is left me;
+and life is a little thing when a man has lost all else."
+
+"I know, I know," said the sly Governor, wagging his big head, "else I had
+not warned you.  For we need you, Messer Galeotto."
+
+"Ay, you need me; you'll make a tool of me--you and your Emperor.  You'll
+use me as a cat's-paw to pull down this inconvenient duke."
+
+Gonzaga rose, frowning.  "You go a little far, Messer Galeotto," he said.
+
+"I go no farther than you urge me," answered the other.
+
+"But patience, patience!" the Lieutenant soothed him, growing sleek again
+in tone and manner.  "Consider now the position.  What the Emperor has
+answered the Pope is no more than the bare and precise truth.  It is not
+clear whether the States of Parma and Piacenza belong to the Empire or the
+Holy See.  But let the people rise and show themselves ill-governed, let
+them revolt against Farnese once he has been created their duke and when
+thus the State shall have been alienated from the Holy See, and then you
+may count upon the Emperor to step in as your liberator and to buttress up
+your revolt."
+
+"Do you promise us so much?" asked Galeotto.
+
+"Explicitly," was the ready answer, "upon my most sacred honour.  Send me
+word that you are in arms, that the first blow has been struck, and I shall
+be with you with all the force that I can raise in the Emperor's name."
+
+"Your excellency has warrant for this?" demanded Galeotto.
+
+"Should I promise it else?  About it, sir.  You may work with confidence."
+
+"With confidence, yes," replied Galeotto gloomily, "but with no great hope.
+The Pontifical government has ground the spirit out of half the nobles of
+the Val di Taro.  They have suffered so much and so repeatedly--in
+property, in liberty, in life itself--that they are grown rabbit-hearted,
+and would sooner cling to the little liberty that is still theirs than
+strike a blow to gain what belongs to them by every right.  Oh, I know them
+of old!  What man can do, I shall do; but..."  He shrugged, and shook his
+head sorrowfully.
+
+"Can you count on none?" asked Gonzaga, very serious, stroking his smooth,
+fat chin.
+
+"I can count upon one," answered Galeotto.  "The Lord of Pagliano; he is
+ghibelline to the very marrow, and he belongs to me.  At my bidding there
+is nothing he will not do.  There is an old debt between us, and he is a
+noble soul who will not leave his debts unpaid.  Upon him I can count; and
+he is rich and powerful.  But then, he is not really a Piacentino himself.
+He holds his fief direct from the Emperor.  Pagliano is part of the State
+of Milan, and Cavalcanti is no subject of Farnese.  His case, therefore, is
+exceptional and he has less than the usual cause for timidity.  But the
+others..."  Again he shrugged.  "What man can do to stir them, that will I
+do.  You shall hear from me soon again, my lord."
+
+Gonzaga looked at me.  "Did you not say that here was another?"
+
+Galeotto smiled sadly.  "Ay--just one arm and one sword.  That is all.
+Unless this emprise succeeds he is never like to rule in Mondolfo.  He may
+be counted upon; but he brings no lances with him."
+
+"I see," said Gonzaga, his lip between thumb and forefinger.  "But his
+name..."
+
+"That and his wrongs shall be used, depend upon it, my lord--the wrongs
+which are his by inheritance."
+
+I said no word.  A certain resentment filled me to hear myself so disposed
+of without being consulted; and yet it was tempered by a certain trust in
+Galeotto, a faith that he would lead me into nothing unworthy.
+
+Gonzaga conducted us to the door of the closet.  "I shall look to hear from
+you, Ser Galeotto," he said.  "And if at first the nobles of the Val di
+Taro are not to be moved, perhaps after they have had a taste of Messer
+Pier Luigi's ways they will gather courage out of despair.  I think we may
+be hopeful if patient.  Meanwhile, my master the Emperor shall be
+informed."
+
+Another moment and we were out of that florid, crafty, well-nourished
+presence.  The curtains had dropped behind us, and we were thrusting our
+way through the press in the ante-chamber, Galeotto muttering to himself
+things which as we gained the open air I gathered to be curses directed
+against the Emperor and his Milanese Lieutenant.
+
+In the inn of the sign of the Sun, by the gigantic Duomo of Visconti's
+building, he opened the gates to his anger and let it freely forth.
+
+"It is a world of cravens," he said, "a world of slothful, self-seeking,
+supine cowards, Agostino.  In the Emperor, at least, I conceived that we
+should have found a man who would not be averse to acting boldly where his
+interests must be served.  More I had not expected of him; but that, at
+least.  And even in that he fails me.  Oh, this Charles V!" he cried.
+"This prince upon whose dominions the sun never sets!  Fortune has bestowed
+upon him all the favours in her gift, yet for himself he can do nothing.
+
+"He is crafty, cruel, irresolute, and mistrustful of all.  He is without
+greatness of any sort, and he is all but Emperor of the World!  Others must
+do his work for him; others must compass the conquests which he is to
+enjoy.
+
+"Ah, well!" he ended, with a sneer, "perhaps as the world views these
+things there is a certain greatness in that--the greatness of the fox."
+
+Naturally there was much in this upon which I needed explanation, and I
+made bold to intrude upon his anger to crave it.  And it was then that I
+learnt the true position of affairs.
+
+Between France and the Empire, the State of Milan had been in contention
+until quite lately, when Henri II had abandoned it to Charles V.  And in
+the State of Milan were the States of Parma and Piacenza, which Pope Julius
+II had wrested from it and incorporated in the domain of the Church.  The
+act, however, was unlawful, and although these States had ever since been
+under Pontifical rule, it was to Milan that they belonged, though Milan
+never yet had had the power to enforce her rights.  She had that power at
+last, now that the Emperor's rule there was a thing determined, and it was
+in this moment that papal nepotism was to make a further alienation of them
+by constituting them into a duchy for the Farnese bastard, Pier Luigi, who
+was already Duke of Castro.
+
+Under papal rule the nobles--more particularly the ghibellines--and the
+lesser tyrants of the Val di Taro had suffered rudely, plundered by
+Pontifical brigandage, enduring confiscations and extortions until they
+were reduced to a miserable condition.  It was against the beginnings of
+this that my father had raised his standard, to be crushed thorough the
+supineness of his peers, who would not support him to save themselves from
+being consumed in the capacious maw of Rome.
+
+But what they had suffered hitherto would be as nothing to what they must
+suffer if the Pope now had his way and if Pier Luigi Farnese were to become
+their duke--an independent prince.  He would break the nobles utterly, to
+remain undisputed master of the territory.  That was a conclusion foregone.
+And yet our princelings saw the evil approaching them, and cowered
+irresolute to await and suffer it.
+
+They had depended, perhaps, upon the Emperor, who, it was known, did not
+favour the investiture, nor would confirm it.  It was remembered that
+Ottavio Farnese-- Pier Luigi's son--was married to Margaret of Austria, the
+Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was to be in Parma
+and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be that of his own
+son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the Empire.  Further was
+it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and Emperor to gain the
+investiture in his own father's stead.
+
+"The unnatural son!" I exclaimed upon learning that.
+
+Galeotto looked at me, and smiled darkly, stroking his great beard.
+
+"Say, rather, the unnatural father," he replied.  "More honour to Ottavio
+Farnese in that he has chosen to forget that he is Pier Luigi's son.  It is
+not a parentage in which any man--be he the most abandoned--could take
+pride."
+
+"How so?" quoth I.
+
+"You have, indeed, lived out of the world if you know nothing of Pier Luigi
+Farnese.  I should have imagined that some echo of his turpitudes must have
+penetrated even to a hermitage--that they would be written upon the very
+face of Nature, which he outrages at every step of his infamous life.  He
+is a monster, a sort of antichrist; the most ruthless, bloody, vicious man
+that ever drew the breath of life.  Indeed, there are not wanting those who
+call him a warlock, a dealer in black magic who has sold his soul to the
+Devil.  Though, for that matter, they say the same of the Pope his father,
+and I doubt not that his magic is just the magic of a wickedness that is
+scarcely human.
+
+"There is a fellow named Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and a
+wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has
+lately written the life of another Pope's son--Cesare Borgia, who lived
+nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to consolidate
+the States of the Church, though his true aim, like Pier Luigi's, was to
+found a State for himself.  I am given to think that for his model of a
+Pope's bastard this Giovio has taken the wretched Farnese rogue, and
+attributed to the son of Alexander VI the vices and infamies of this son of
+Paul III.
+
+"Even to attempt to draw a parallel is to insult the memory of the Borgia;
+for he, at least, was a great captain and a great ruler, and he knew how to
+endear to himself the fold that he governed; so that when I was a lad--
+thirty years ago--there were still those in the Romagna who awaited the
+Borgia's return, and prayed for it as earnestly as pray the faithful for
+the second coming of the Messiah, refusing to believe that he was dead.
+But this Pier Luigi!"  He thrust out a lip contemptuously.  "He is no
+better than a thief, a murderer, a defiler, a bestial, lecherous dog!
+
+And with that he began to relate some of the deeds of this man; and his
+life, it seemed, was written in blood and filth--a tale of murders and
+rapes and worse.  And when as a climax he told me of the horrible, inhuman
+outrage done to Cosimo Gheri, the young Bishop of Fano, I begged him to
+cease, for my horror turned me almost physically sick.1
+
+1  The incident to which Agostino here alludes is fully set forth by
+Benedetto Varchi at the end of Book XVI of his Storia Fiorentina.
+
+
+"That bishop was a holy man, of very saintly life," Galeotto insisted, "and
+the deed permitted the German Lutherans to say that here was a new form of
+martyrdom for saints invented by the Pope's son.  And his father pardoned
+him the deed, and others as bad, by a secret bull, absolving him from all
+pains and penalties that he might have incurred through youthful frailty or
+human incontinence!"
+
+It was the relation of those horrors, I think, which, stirring my
+indignation, spurred me even more than the thought of redressing the wrongs
+which the Pontifical or Farnesian government would permit my mother to do
+me.
+
+I held out my hand to Galeotto.  "To the utmost of my little might," said
+I, "you may depend upon me in this good cause in which you have engaged."
+
+"There speaks the son of the house of Anguissola," said he, a light of
+affection in his steel-coloured eyes.  "And there are your father's wrongs
+to right as well as the wrongs of humanity, remember.  By this Pier Luigi
+was he crushed; whilst those who bore arms with him at Perugia and were
+taken alive..."  He paused and turned livid, great beads of perspiration
+standing upon his brow.  "I cannot," he faltered, "I cannot even now, after
+all these years, bear to think upon those horrors perpetrated by that
+monster."
+
+I was strangely moved at the sight of emotion in one who seemed emotionless
+as iron.
+
+"I left the hermitage," said I, "in the hope that I might the better be
+able to serve God in the world.  I think you are showing me the way, Ser
+Galeotto."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PIER LUIGI FARNESE
+
+
+We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season of
+wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny to
+tyranny, just the three of us--Galeotto and myself with Falcone for our
+equerry and attendant.
+
+Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been in me;
+for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the fanaticism
+with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the course I had taken
+then.
+
+I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
+Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke of
+Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza--for the investiture duly followed
+in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to be felt
+throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a prince.
+
+And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto cunningly
+added yet another and more worldly spur.  We were riding one day in late
+September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had spent a month in
+seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of resistance, and we were
+making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold of that great Lombard
+family of dal Verme.
+
+As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
+Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled me
+by his words.
+
+"Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino," he said,
+and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.
+
+In my confusion--more or less at random--"What should Cavalcanti's daughter
+be to me?" I asked.
+
+"Why, what you will, I think," he answered, taking my question literally.
+"Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina a suitable mate
+for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her to the landless
+Agostino d'Anguissola.  He loved your father better than any man that ever
+lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired."
+
+"Do you think I need this added spur?" quoth I.
+
+"Nay, I know that you do not.  But it is well to know what reward may wait
+upon our labour.  It makes that labour lighter and increases courage."
+
+I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.
+
+He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender.  Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti!  It was a name I uttered like a prayer, like a holy invocation.
+Just so had I been in a measure content to carry that name and the memory
+of her sweet face.  To consider her as the possible Lady of Mondolfo when I
+should once more have come into my own, was to consider things that filled
+me almost with despair.
+
+Again I experienced such hesitations as had kept me from ever seeking her
+at Pagliano, though I had been given the freedom of her garden.  Giuliana
+had left her brand upon me.  And though Bianca had by now achieved for me
+what neither prayers nor fasting could accomplish, and had exorcized the
+unholy visions of Giuliana from my mind, yet when I came to consider Bianca
+as a possible companion--as something more or something less than a saint
+enthroned in the heaven created by my worship of her--there rose between us
+ever that barrier of murder and adultery, a barrier which not even in
+imagination did I dare to overstep.
+
+I strove to put such thoughts from my mind that I might leave it free to do
+the work to which I had now vowed myself.
+
+All through that winter we pursued our mission.  With the dal Verme we had
+but indifferent success, for they accounted themselves safe, being, like
+Cavalcanti, feudatories of the Emperor himself, and nowise included in the
+territories of Parma and Piacenza.  From Romagnese we made our way to the
+stronghold of the Anguissola of Albarola, my cousins, who gave me a very
+friendly welcome, and who, though with us in spirit and particularly urged
+by their hatred of our guelphic cousin Cosimo who was now Pier Luigi's
+favourite, yet hesitated as the others had done.  And we met with little
+better success with Sforza of Santafiora, to whose castle we next repaired,
+or yet with the Landi, the Scotti, or Confalonieri.  Everywhere the same
+spirit of awe was abroad, and the same pusillanimity, content to hug the
+little that remained rather than rear its head to demand that which by
+right belonged.
+
+So that when the spring came round again, and our mission done, our crusade
+preached to hearts that would not be inflamed, we turned our steps once
+more towards Pagliano, we were utterly dispirited men--although, for
+myself, my despondency was tempered a little by the thought that I was to
+see Bianca once more.
+
+Yet before I come to speak of her again, let me have done with these
+historical matters in so far as they touched ourselves.
+
+We had left the nobles unresponsive, as you have seen.  But soon the
+prognostications of the crafty Gonzaga were realized.  Soon Farnese,
+through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy.  The first
+to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their lands
+of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife and
+mother.  Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing Romagnese
+to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their other fief of
+Bobbio.  Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched upon Castel San
+Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and at the same time he
+committed the mistake of attempting to drive the Gonzaga out of Soragna.
+
+This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
+resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga.  With the Imperial troops at his heels the
+Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his family, but
+forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese, restoring them to the
+dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of San Giovanni upon which
+he was at the time engaged--claiming that both these noble houses were
+feudatories of the Empire.
+
+Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
+steely claws.  To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
+Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
+their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
+cities of their districts.  Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed at
+once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his will,
+he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.
+
+Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
+having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
+residence in our palace in the city itself.  But she went further than she
+was bidden--she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
+retired from the world.
+
+The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
+Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his garden,
+slicing the tallest poppies from their stems.  And soon to swell his
+treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
+confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set himself
+to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate laws that were
+retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines and perpetrate
+fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been done long years
+ago.
+
+Amongst these, we heard that he had Giovanni d'Anguissola decapitated in
+effigy for his rebellion against the authority of the Holy See, and that my
+tyrannies of Mondolfo and Carmina were confiscated from me because of my
+offence in being Giovanni d'Anguissola's son.  And presently we heard that
+Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal servant and
+captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a thousand
+ducats yearly!
+
+Galeotto ground his teeth and swore horribly when the news was brought us
+from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope of Bianca--the
+hope secretly entertained almost against hope itself--withering in my soul.
+
+But soon came consolation.  Pier Luigi had gone too far.  Even rats when
+cornered will turn at bay and bare their teeth for combat.  So now the
+nobles of the Valnure and the Val di Taro.
+
+The Scotti, the Pallavicini, the Landi, and the Anguissola of Albarola,
+came one after the other in secret to Pagliano to interview the gloomy
+Galeotto.  And at one gathering that was secretly held in a chamber of the
+castle, he lashed them with his furious scorn.
+
+"You are come now," he jeered at them, "now that you are maimed; now that
+you have been bled of half your strength; now that most of your teeth are
+drawn.  Had you but had the spirit and good sense to rise six months ago
+when I summoned you so to do, the struggle had been brief and the victory
+certain.  Now the fight will be all fraught with risk, dangerous to engage,
+and uncertain of issue."
+
+But it was they--these men who themselves had been so pusillanimous at
+first--who now urged him to take the lead, swearing to follow him to the
+death, to save for their children what little was still left them.
+
+"In that spirit I will not lead you a step," he answered them.  "If we
+raise our standard, we fight for all our ancient rights, for all our
+privileges, and for the restoration of all that has been confiscated; in
+short, for the expulsion of the Farnese from these lands.  If that is your
+spirit, then I will consider what is to be done--for, believe me, open
+warfare will no longer avail us here.  What we have to do must be done by
+guile.  You have waited too long to resolve yourselves.  And whilst you
+have grown weak, Farnese has been growing strong.  He has fawned upon and
+flattered the populace; he has set the people against the nobles; he has
+pretended that in crushing the nobles he was serving the people, and they--
+poor fools!--have so far believed him that they will run to his banner in
+any struggle that may ensue."
+
+He dismissed them at last with the promise that they should hear from him,
+and on the morrow, attended by Falcone only, he rode forth again from
+Pagliano, to seek out the dal Verme and the Sforza of Santafiora and
+endeavour to engage their interest against the man who had outraged them.
+
+And that was early in August of the year '46.
+
+I remained at Pagliano by Galeotto's request.  He would have no need of me
+upon his mission.  But he might desire me to seek out some of the others of
+the Val  di Taro with such messages as he should send me.
+
+And in all this time I had seen but little of Monna Bianca.  We met under
+her father's eye in that gold-and-purple dining-room; and there I would
+devoutly, though surreptitiously, feast my eyes upon the exquisite beauty
+of her.  But I seldom spoke to her, and then it was upon the most trivial
+matters; whilst although the summer was now full fragrantly unfolded, yet I
+never dared to intrude into that garden of hers to which I had been bidden,
+ever restrained by the overwhelming memory of the past.
+
+So poignant was this memory that at times I caught myself wondering
+whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in lending an ear so readily to
+the arguments of Fra Gervasio, whether Fra Gervasio himself had not been
+mistaken in assuming that my place was in the world, and whether I had not
+done best to have carried out my original intention of seeking refuge in
+some monastery in the lowly position of a lay brother.
+
+Meanwhile the Lord of Pagliano used me in the most affectionate and
+fatherly manner.  But not even this sufficed to encourage me where his
+daughter was concerned, and I seemed to observe also that Bianca herself,
+if she did not actually avoid my society, was certainly at no pains to seek
+it.
+
+What the end would have been but for the terrible intervention there was in
+our affairs, I have often surmised without result.
+
+It happened that one day, about a week after Galeotto had left us there
+rode up to the gates of Pagliano a very magnificent company, and there was
+great braying of horns, stamping of horses and rattle of arms.
+
+My Lord Pier Luigi Farnese had been on a visit to his city of Parma, and on
+his return journey had thought well to turn aside into the lands of ultra-
+Po, and pay a visit to the Lord of Pagliano, whom he did not love, yet
+whom, perhaps, it may have been his intention to conciliate, since hurt him
+he could not.
+
+Sufficiently severe had been the lesson he had received for meddling with
+Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of provoking
+further the resentment of the Emperor.  To Farnese, Charles V was a
+sleeping dog it was as well to leave sleeping.
+
+He rode, then, upon his friendly visit into the Castle of Pagliano,
+attended by a vast retinue of courtiers and ladies, pages, lackeys, and a
+score of men-at-arms.  A messenger had ridden on in advance to warn
+Cavalcanti of the honour that the Duke proposed to do him, and Cavalcanti,
+relishing the honour no whit, yet submitting out of discreetness, stood to
+receive his excellency at the foot of the marble staircase with Bianca on
+one side and myself upon the other.
+
+Under the archway they rode, Farnese at the head of the cavalcade.  He
+bestrode a splendid white palfrey, whose mane and tail were henna-dyed,
+whose crimson velvet trappings trailed almost to the ground.  He was
+dressed in white velvet, even to his thigh-boots, which were laced with
+gold and armed with heavy gold spurs.  A scarlet plume was clasped by a
+great diamond in his velvet cap, and on his right wrist was perched a
+hooded falcon.
+
+He was a tall and gracefully shaped man of something over forty years of
+age, black-haired and olive-skinned, wearing a small pointed beard that
+added length to his face.  His nose was aquiline, and he had fine eyes, but
+under them there were heavy brown shadows, and as he came nearer it was
+seen that his countenance was marred by an unpleasant eruption of sores.
+
+After him came his gentlemen, a round dozen of them, with half that number
+of splendid ladies, all a very dazzling company.  Behind these, in blazing
+liveries, there was a cloud of pages upon mules, and lackeys leading
+sumpter-beasts; and then to afford them an effective background, a grey,
+steel phalanx of men-at-arms.
+
+I describe his entrance as it appeared at a glance, for I did not study it
+or absorb any of its details.  My horrified gaze was held by a figure that
+rode on his right hand, a queenly woman with a beautiful pale countenance
+and a lazy, insolent smile.
+
+It was Giuliana.
+
+How she came there I did not at the moment trouble to reflect.  She was
+there.  That was the hideous fact that made me doubt the sight of my own
+eyes, made me conceive almost that I was at my disordered visions again,
+the fruit of too much brooding.  I felt as if all the blood were being
+exhausted from my heart, as if my limbs would refuse their office, and I
+leaned for support against the terminal of the balustrade by which I stood.
+
+She saw me.  And after the first slight start of astonishment, her lazy
+smile grew broader and more insolent.  I was but indifferently conscious of
+the hustle about me, of the fact that Cavalcanti himself was holding the
+Duke's stirrup, whilst the latter got slowly to the ground and relinquished
+his falcon to a groom who wore a perch suspended from his neck, bearing
+three other hooded birds.  Similarly I was no more than conscious of being
+forced to face the Duke by words that Cavalcanti was uttering.  He was
+presenting me.
+
+"This, my lord, is Agostino d'Anguissola."
+
+I saw, as through a haze, the swarthy, pustuled visage frown down upon me.
+I heard a voice which was at once harsh and effeminate and quite
+detestable, saying in unfriendly tones:
+
+"The son of Giovanni d'Anguissola of Mondolfo, eh?"
+
+"The same, my lord," said Cavalcanti, adding generously--"Giovanni
+d'Anguissola was my friend."
+
+"It is a friendship that does you little credit, sir," was the harsh
+answer.  "It is not well to befriend the enemies of God."
+
+Was it possible that I had heard aright?  Had this human foulness dared to
+speak of God?
+
+"That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest," said
+Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed from
+his brown eyes.
+
+At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that, forewarned
+of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that one blast from the
+silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have produced a tide of men-
+at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed Messer Pier Luigi and his
+suite.
+
+Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh.  And then a lazy,
+drawling voice--a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears, but
+now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs--addressed me.
+
+"Why, here is a great change, sir saint!  We had heard you had turned
+anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would out-dazzle
+Phoebus."
+
+I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face, and
+I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us with
+eyes of grave concern.
+
+"I like you better for the change," pursued Giuliana.  "And I vow that you
+have grown at least another inch.  Have you no word for me, Agostino?"
+
+I was forced to answer her.  "I trust that all is well with you, Madonna,"
+I said.
+
+Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of her
+strong teeth.  "Why, all is very well with me," said she, and her sidelong
+glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious kindliness,
+seemed to give added explanations.
+
+That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
+wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and
+saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then, for
+which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark turpitudes
+that I had heard associated with his odious name.
+
+And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my Bianca,
+speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy fire what
+time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily.  He seemed
+to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance that he kept us
+all standing there.
+
+"You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna," I heard him murmuring.
+"We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen in this garden of
+Pagliano.   It is not well that such a jewel should be hidden in this grey
+casket.  You were made to queen it in a court, Madonna; and at Piacenza you
+shall be hailed and honoured as its queen."  And so he rambled on with his
+rough and trivial flattery, his foully pimpled face within a foot of hers,
+and she shrinking before him, very white and mute and frightened.  Her
+father looked on with darkling brows, and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip
+and look less lazy, whilst in the courtly background there was a respectful
+murmuring babble, supplying a sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable
+adulation.
+
+It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
+peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MADONNA BIANCA
+
+
+Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
+Pagliano.  But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
+upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.
+
+A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
+the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to his
+secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I learnt,
+was my old friend Annibale Caro.
+
+And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
+presence, and gave him and his suite most noble entertainment.
+
+His position was perilous and precarious in the extreme, and it needed all
+his strength of character to hold in curb the resentment that boiled within
+him to see himself thus preyed upon; and that was not the worst.  The worst
+was Pier Luigi's ceaseless attentions to Bianca, the attentions of the
+satyr for the nymph, a matter in which I think Cavalcanti suffered little
+less than did I.
+
+He hoped for the best, content to wait until cause for action should be
+forced upon him.  And meanwhile that courtly throng took its ease at
+Pagliano.  The garden that hitherto had been Bianca's own sacred domain,
+the garden into which I had never yet dared set foot, was overrun now by
+the Duke's gay suite--a cloud of poisonous butterflies.  There in the
+green, shaded alleys they disported themselves; in the lemon-grove, in the
+perfumed rose-garden, by hedges of box and screens of purple clematis they
+fluttered.
+
+Bianca sought to keep her chamber in those days, and kept it for as long on
+each day as was possible to her.  But the Duke, hobbling on the terrace--
+for as a consequence of his journey on horseback he had developed a slight
+lameness, being all rotten with disease--would grow irritable at her
+absence, and insistent upon her presence, hinting that her retreat was a
+discourtesy; so that she was forced to come forth again, and suffer his
+ponderous attentions and gross flatteries.
+
+And three days later there came another to Pagliano, bidden thither by the
+Duke, and this other was none else than my cousin Cosimo, who now called
+himself Lord of Mondolfo, having been invested in that tyranny, as I have
+said.
+
+On the morning after his arrival we met upon the terrace.
+
+"My saintly cousin!" was his derisive greeting.  "And yet another change in
+you--out of sackcloth into velvet!  The calendar shall know you as St.
+Weathercock, I think--or, perhaps, St. Mountebank."
+
+What followed was equally bitter and sardonic on his part, fiercely and
+openly hostile on mine.  At my hostility he had smiled cruelly.
+
+"Be content with what is, my strolling saint," he said, in the tone of one
+who gives a warning, "unless you would be back in your hermitage, or within
+the walls of some cloister, or even worse.  Already have you found it a
+troublesome matter to busy yourself with the affairs of the world.  You
+were destined for sanctity."  He came closer, and grew very fierce.  "Do
+not put it upon me to make a saint of you by sending you to Heaven."
+
+"It might end in your own dispatch to Hell," said I.  "Shall we essay it?"
+
+"Body of God!" he snarled, laughter still lingering on his white face.  "Is
+this the mood of your holiness at present?  What a bloodthirsty brave are
+you become!  Consider, pray, sir, that if you trouble me I have no need to
+do my own office of hangman.  There is sufficient against you to make the
+Tribunal of the Ruota very busy; there is--can you have forgotten it?--that
+little affair at the house of Messer Fifanti."
+
+I dropped my glance, browbeaten for an instant.  Then I looked at him
+again, and smiled
+
+"You are but a poor coward, Messer Cosimo," said I, "to use a shadow as a
+screen.  You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana
+speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake.  There are witnesses who
+will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night.  There is not
+one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth again; and
+it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana is well-known, as
+it is well-known that she fled with him after the murder--which, in itself,
+is evidence of a sort.  Your Duke has too great a respect for the feelings
+of the populace," I sneered, "to venture to outrage them in such a matter.
+Besides," I ended, "it is impossible to incriminate me without
+incriminating Giuliana and, Messer Pier Luigi seems, I should say,
+unwilling to relinquish the lady to the brutalities of a tribunal."
+
+"You are greatly daring," said he, and he was pale now, for in that last
+mention of Giuliana, it seemed that I had touched him where he was still
+sensitive.
+
+"Daring?" I rejoined.  "It is more than I can say for you, Ser Cosimo.
+Yours is the coward's fault of caution."
+
+I thought to spur him.  If this failed, I was prepared to strike him, for
+my temper was beyond control.  That he, standing towards me as he did,
+should dare to mock me, was more than I could brook.  But at that moment
+there spoke a harsh voice just behind me.
+
+"How, sir?  What words are these?"
+
+There, very magnificent in his suit of ivory velvet, stood the Duke.  He
+was leaning heavily upon his cane, and his face was more blotched than
+ever, the sunken eyes more sunken.
+
+"Are you seeking to quarrel with the Lord of Mondolfo?" quoth he, and I saw
+by his smile that he used my cousin's title as a taunt.
+
+Behind him was Cavalcanti with Bianca leaning upon his arm just as I had
+seen her that day when she came with him to Monte Orsaro, save that now
+there was a look as of fear in the blue depths of her eyes.  A little on
+one side there was a group composed of three of the Duke's gentlemen with
+Giuliana and another of the ladies, and Giuliana was watching us with half-
+veiled eyes.
+
+"My lord," I answered, very stiff and erect, and giving him back look for
+look, something perhaps of the loathing with which he inspired me imprinted
+on my face, "my lord, you give yourself idle alarms.  Ser Cosimo is too
+cautious to embroil himself."
+
+He limped toward me; leaning heavily upon his stick, and it pleased me that
+of a good height though he was, he was forced to look up into my face.
+
+"There is too much bad Anguissola blood in you," he said.  "Be careful lest
+out of our solicitude for you, we should find it well to let our leech
+attend you."
+
+I laughed, looking into his blotched face, considering his lame leg and all
+the evil humours in him.
+
+"By my faith, I think it is your excellency needs the attentions of a
+leech," said I, and flung all present into consternation by that answer.
+
+I saw his face turn livid, and I saw the hand shake upon the golden head of
+his cane.  He was very sensitive upon the score of his foul infirmities.
+His eyes grew baleful as he controlled himself.  Then he smiled, displaying
+a ruin of blackened teeth.
+
+"You had best take care," he said.  "It were a pity to cripple such fine
+limbs as yours.  But there is a certain matter upon which the Holy Office
+might desire to set you some questions.  Best be careful, sir, and avoid
+disagreements with my captains."
+
+He turned away.  He had had the last word, and had left me cold with
+apprehension, yet warmed by the consciousness that in the brief encounter
+it was he who had taken the deeper wound.
+
+He bowed before Bianca.  "Oh, pardon me," he said.  "I did not dream you
+stood so near.  Else no such harsh sounds should have offended your fair
+ears.  As for Messer d'Anguissola..."  He shrugged as who would say, "Have
+pity on such a boor!"
+
+But her answer, crisp and sudden as come words that are spoken on impulse
+or inspiration, dashed his confidence.
+
+"Nothing that he said offended me," she told him boldly, almost scornfully.
+
+He flashed me a glance that was full of venom, and I saw Cosimo smile,
+whilst Cavalcanti started slightly at such boldness from his meek child.
+But the Duke was sufficiently master of himself to bow again.
+
+"Then am I less aggrieved," said he, and changed the subject.  "Shall we to
+the bowling lawn?"  And his invitation was direct to Bianca, whilst his
+eyes passed over her father.  Without waiting for their answer, his
+question, indeed, amounting to a command, he turned sharply to my cousin.
+"Your arm, Cosimo," said he, and leaning heavily upon his captain he went
+down the broad granite steps, followed by the little knot of courtiers,
+and, lastly, by Bianca and her father.
+
+As for me, I turned and went indoors, and there was little of the saint
+left in me in that hour.  All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred
+and anger.  Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that
+Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last to
+seek her but as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had spent at
+Pagliano.
+
+I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
+She was pacing slowly, having fled thither to avoid that hateful throng of
+courtiers.  Seeing me she smiled timidly, and her smile gave me what little
+further encouragement I needed.  I approached, and very earnestly rendered
+her my thanks for having championed my cause and supported me with the
+express sign of her approval.
+
+She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed
+and flowed in her cheeks.
+
+"You should not thank me," said she.  "What I did was done for justice's
+sake."
+
+"I have been presumptuous," I answered humbly, "in conceiving that it might
+have been for the sake of me."
+
+"But it was that also," she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she had
+pained me.  "It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat you.
+I took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return thrust for
+thrust."
+
+"I think your presence must have heartened me," said I.  "No pain could be
+so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes."
+
+Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek.  She began to pace
+slowly down the gallery, and I beside her.  Presently she spoke again.
+
+"And yet," she said, " I would have you cautious.  Do not wantonly affront
+the Duke, for he is very powerful."
+
+"I have little left to lose," said I.
+
+"You have your life," said she.
+
+"A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in
+reproach."
+
+She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again.  Thus
+we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was placed,
+with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather.  She sank to it with a
+little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and slightly over
+her.  And now I grew strangely bold.
+
+"Set me some penance," I cried, "that shall make me worthy."
+
+Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
+
+"A penance?" quoth she.  "I do not understand."
+
+"All my life," I explained, "has been a vain striving after something that
+eluded me.  Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned and
+rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro, seeking by
+penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had succumbed.  That
+shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had done, the signs I
+believed I had received, were turned to mockery.  It was not there that I
+should save myself.  One night I was told so in a vision."
+
+She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell silent,
+staring back at her.
+
+"You knew!" I cried.
+
+Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as never
+yet they had met it.  She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time openly
+to consider me.
+
+"I know now," she breathed.
+
+"What do you know?"  My voice was tense with excitement.
+
+"What was your vision?" she rejoined.
+
+"Have I not told you?  There appeared to me one who called me back to the
+world; who assured me that there I should best serve God; who filled me
+with the conviction that she needed me.  She addressed me by name, and
+spoke of a place of which I had never heard until that hour, but which
+to-day I know."
+
+"And you?  And you?" she asked.  "What answer did you make?"
+
+"I called her by name, although until that hour I did not know it."
+
+She bowed her head.  Emotion set her all a-tremble.
+
+"It is what I have so often wondered," she confessed, scarce above a
+whisper.  "And it is true--as true as it is strange!"
+
+"True?" I echoed.  "It was the only true miracle in that place of false
+ones, and it was so clear a call of destiny that it decided me to return to
+the world which I had abandoned.  And yet I have since wondered why.  Here
+there seems to be no place for me any more than there was yonder.  I am
+devout again with a worldly devotion now, yet with a devotion that must be
+Heaven-inspired, so pure and sweet it is.  It has shut out from me all the
+foulness of that past; and yet I am unworthy.  And that is why I cry to you
+to set me some penance ere I can make my prayer."
+
+She could not understand me, nor did she.  We were not as ordinary lovers.
+We were not as man and maid who, meeting and being drawn each to the other,
+fence and trifle in a pretty game of dalliance until the maid opines that
+the appearances are safe, and that, her resistance having been of a seemly
+length, she may now make the ardently desired surrender with all war's
+honours.  Nothing of that was in our wooing, a wooing which seemed to us,
+now that we spoke of it, to have been done when we had scarcely met, done
+in the vision that I had of her, and the vision that she had of me.
+
+With averted eyes she set me now a question.
+
+"Madonna Giuliana used you with a certain freedom on her arrival, and I
+have since heard your name coupled with her own by the Duke's ladies.  But
+I have asked no questions of them.  I know how false can be the tongues of
+courtly folk.  I ask it now of you.  What is or was this Madonna Giuliana
+to you?"
+
+"She was," I answered bitterly, "and God pity me that I must say it to
+you--she was to me what Circe was to the followers of Ulysses."
+
+She made a little moan, and I saw her clasp her hands in her lap; and the
+sound and sight filled me with sorrow and despair.  She must know.  Better
+that the knowledge should stand between us as a barrier which both could
+see than that it should remain visible only to the eyes of my own soul, to
+daunt me.
+
+"0 Bianca!  Forgive me!" I cried.  "I did not know!  I did not know!  I was
+a poor fool reared in seclusion and ripened thus for the first temptation
+that should touch me.  That is what on Monte Orsaro I sought to expiate,
+that I might be worthy of the shrine I guarded then.  That is what I would
+expiate now that I might be worthy of the shrine whose guardian I would
+become, the shrine at which I worship now."
+
+I was bending very low above her little brown head, in which the threads of
+the gold coif-net gleamed in the fading light.
+
+"If I had but had my vision sooner," I murmured, "how easy it would have
+been!  Can you find mercy for me in your gentle heart?  Can you forgive me,
+Bianca?
+
+"0 Agostino," she answered very sadly, and the sound of my name from her
+lips, coming so naturally and easily, thrilled me like the sound of the
+mystic music of Monte Orsaro.  "What shall I answer you?  I cannot now.
+Give me leisure to think.  My mind is all benumbed.  You have hurt me so!"
+
+"Me miserable!" I cried.
+
+"I had believed you one who erred through excess of holiness."
+
+"Whereas I am one who attempted holiness through excess of error."
+
+"I had believed you so, so...0 Agostino!"  It was a little wail of pain.
+
+"Set me a penance," I implored her.
+
+"What penance can I set you?  Will any penance restore to me my shattered
+faith?"
+
+I groaned miserably and covered my face with my hands.  It seemed that I
+was indeed come to the end of all my hopes; that the world was become as
+much a mockery to me as had been the hermitage; that the one was to end for
+me upon the discovery of a fraud, as had the other ended--with the
+difference that in this case the fraud was in myself.
+
+It seemed, indeed, that our first communion must be our last.  Ever since
+she had seen me step into that gold-and-purple dining-room at Pagliano, the
+incarnation of her vision, as she was the incarnation of mine, Bianca must
+have waited confidently for this hour, knowing that it was foreordained to
+come.  Bitterness and disillusion were all that it had brought her.
+
+And then, ere more could be said, a thin, flute-like voice hissed down the
+vaulted gallery:
+
+"Madonna Bianca!  To hide your beauty from our hungry eyes.  To quench the
+light by which we guide our footsteps.  To banish from us the happiness and
+joy of your presence!  Unkind, unkind!"
+
+It was the Duke.  In his white velvet suit he looked almost ghostly in the
+deepening twilight.  He hobbled towards us, his stick tapping the black-
+and-white squares of the marble floor.  He halted before her, and she put
+aside her emotion, donned a worldly mask, and rose to meet him.
+
+Then he looked at me, and his brooding eyes seemed to scan my face.
+
+"Why!  It is Ser Agostino, Lord of Nothing," he sneered, and down the
+gallery rang the laugh of my cousin Cosimo, and there came, too, a ripple
+of other voices.
+
+Whether to save me from friction with those steely gentlemen who aimed at
+grinding me to powder, whether from other motives, Bianca set her finger-
+tips upon the Duke's white sleeve and moved away with him.
+
+I leaned against the balustrade all numb, watching them depart.  I saw
+Cosimo come upon her other side and lean over her as he moved, so slim and
+graceful, beside her own slight, graceful figure.  Then I sank to the
+cushions of the seat she had vacated, and stayed there with my misery until
+the night had closed about the place, and the white marble pillars looked
+ghostly and unreal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE WARNING
+
+
+I prayed that evening more fervently than I had prayed since quitting Monte
+Orsaro.  It was as if all the influences of my youth, which lately had been
+shaken off in the stir of intrigue and of rides that had seemed the prelude
+to battle, were closing round me again.
+
+Even as a woman had lured me once from the ways to which I seemed
+predestined, only to drive me back once more the more frenziedly, so now it
+almost seemed as if again a woman should have lured me to the world but to
+drive me from it again and more resolutely than ever.  For I was anew upon
+the edge of a resolve to have done with all human interests and to seek the
+peace and seclusion of the cloister.
+
+And then I bethought me of Gervasio.  I would go to him for guidance, as I
+had done aforetime.  I would ride on the morrow to seek him out in the
+convent near Piacenza to which he had withdrawn.
+
+I was disturbed at last by the coming of a page to my chamber with the
+announcement that my lord was already at supper.
+
+I had thoughts of excusing myself, but in the end I went.
+
+The repast was spread, as usual, in the banqueting-hall of the castle; and
+about the splendid table was Pier Luigi's company, amounting to nigh upon a
+score in all.  The Duke himself sat on Monna Bianca's right, whilst on her
+left was Cosimo.
+
+Heeding little whether I was observed or not, I sank to a vacant place,
+midway down the board, between one of the Duke's pretty young gentlemen and
+one of the ladies of that curious train--a bold-eyed Roman woman, whose
+name, I remember, was Valeria Cesarini, but who matters nothing in these
+pages.  Almost facing me sat Giuliana, but I was hardly conscious of her,
+or conscious, indeed, of any save Monna Bianca.
+
+Once or twice Bianca's glance met mine, but it fell away again upon the
+instant.  She was very pale, and there were wistful lines about her lips;
+yet her mood was singular.  Her eyes had an unnatural sparkle, and ever and
+anon she would smile at what was said to her in half-whispers, now by the
+Duke, now by Cosimo, whilst once or twice she laughed outright.  Gone was
+the usual chill reserve with which she hedged herself about to distance the
+hateful advances of Pier Luigi.  There were moments now when she seemed
+almost flattered by his vile ogling and adulatory speeches, as if she had
+been one of those brazen ladies of his Court.
+
+It wounded me sorely.  I could not understand it, lacking the wit to see
+that this queer mood sprang from the blow I had dealt her, and was the
+outward manifestation of her own pain at the shattering of the illusions
+she had harboured concerning myself.
+
+And so I sat there moodily, gnawing my lip and scowling darkly upon Pier
+Luigi and upon my cousin, who was as assiduous in his attentions as his
+master, and who seemed to be receiving an even greater proportion of her
+favours.  One little thing there was to hearten me.  Looking at the Lord of
+Pagliano, who sat at the table's head, I observed that his glance was dark
+as it kept watch upon his daughter--that chaste white lily that seemed of a
+sudden to have assumed such wanton airs.
+
+It was a matter that stirred me to battle, and forgotten again were my
+resolves to seek Gervasio, forgotten all notion of abandoning the world for
+the second time.  Here was work to be done.  Bianca was to be guarded.
+Perhaps it was in this that she would come to have need of me.
+
+Once Cosimo caught my gloomy looks, and he leaned over to speak to the
+Duke, who glanced my way with languid, sneering eyes.  He had a score to
+settle with me for the discomfiture he had that morning suffered at my
+hands thanks to Bianca's collaboration.  He was a clumsy fool, when all is
+said, and confident now of her support--from the sudden and extreme
+friendliness of her mood--he ventured to let loose a shaft at me in a tone
+that all the table might overhear.
+
+"That cousin of yours wears a very conventual hang-dog look," said he to
+Cosimo.  And then to the lady on my right--"Forgive, Valeria," he begged,
+"the scurvy chance that should have sat a shaveling next to you."  Lastly
+he turned to me to complete this gross work of offensiveness.
+
+"When do you look, sir, to enter the life monastic for which Heaven has so
+clearly designed you?"
+
+There were some sycophants who tittered at his stupid pleasantry; then the
+table fell silent to hear what answer I should make, and a frown sat like a
+thundercloud upon the brow of Cavalcanti.
+
+I toyed with my goblet, momentarily tempted to fling its contents in his
+pustuled face, and risk the consequences.  But I bethought me of something
+else that would make a deadlier missile.
+
+"Alas!" I sighed.  "I have abandoned the notion--constrained to it."
+
+He took my bait.  "Constrained?" quoth he.  "Now what fool did so constrain
+you?"
+
+"No fool, but circumstance," I answered.  "It has occurred to me," I
+explained, and I boldly held his glance with my own, "that as a simple monk
+my life would be fraught with perils, seeing that in these times even a
+bishop is not safe."
+
+Saving Bianca (who in her sweet innocence did not so much as dream of the
+existence of such vileness as that to which I was referring and by which a
+saintly man had met his death) I do not imagine that there was a single
+person present who did not understand to what foul crime I alluded.
+
+The silence that followed my words was as oppressive as the silence which
+in Nature preludes thunder.
+
+A vivid flame of scarlet had overspread the Duke's countenance.  It
+receded, leaving his cheeks a greenish white, even to the mottling pimples.
+Abashed, his smouldering eyes fell away before my bold, defiant glance.
+The fingers of his trembling hand tightened about the slender stem of his
+Venetian goblet, so that it snapped, and there was a gush of crimson wine
+upon the snowy napery.  His lips were drawn back--like a dog's in the act
+of snarling--and showed the black stumps of his broken teeth.  But he made
+no sound, uttered no word.  It was Cosimo who spoke, half rising as he did
+so.
+
+"This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out.
+Suffer me..."
+
+But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my cousin's
+sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him.
+
+"Let be," he said.  And looked up the board at Cavalcanti.  "It is for my
+Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his board."
+
+Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid.  "You place a heavy burden on my
+shoulders," said he, "when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me against
+another guest of mine--against one who is all but friendless and the son of
+my own best friend."
+
+"And my worst enemy," cried Pier Luigi hotly.
+
+"That is your excellency's own concern, not mine," said Cavalcanti coldly.
+"But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer d'Anguissola's words
+were ill-judged in such a season.  Yet in justice I must add that it is not
+the way of youth to weigh its words too carefully; and you gave him
+provocation.  When a man--be he never so high--permits himself to taunt
+another, he would do well to see that he is not himself vulnerable to
+taunts."
+
+Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with him.
+
+"My lord," he said, "this is to take sides against me; to endorse the
+affront."
+
+"Then you mistake my intention," rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy dignity.
+"You appeal to me for judgment.  And between guests I must hold the scales
+dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either.  Of your chivalry, my
+lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else."
+
+It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he cared
+nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency that
+Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of Parma
+might ruffle it unchecked.
+
+Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance.  Then his eyes
+turned to Bianca, and his expression softened.
+
+"What says Madonna Bianca?" he inquired, his manner reassuming some measure
+of its courtliness.  "Is her judgment as unmercifully level?"
+
+She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the
+tenseness of a situation which she did not understand.
+
+"What say I?" quoth she.  "Why, that here is a deal of pother about some
+foolish words."
+
+"And there," cried Pier Luigi, "spoke, I think, not only beauty but
+wisdom--Minerva's utterances from the lips of Diana!"
+
+In glad relief the company echoed his forced laugh, and all sat down again,
+the incident at an end, and my contempt of the Duke increased to see him
+permit such a matter to be so lightly ended.
+
+But that night, when I had retired to my chamber, I was visited by
+Cavalcanti.  He was very grave.
+
+"Agostino," he said, "let me implore you to be circumspect, to keep a curb
+upon your bitter tongue.  Be patient, boy, as I am--and I have more to
+endure."
+
+"I marvel, sir, that you endure it," answered I, for my mood was petulant.
+
+"You will marvel less when you are come to my years--if, indeed, you come
+to them.  For if you pursue this course, and strike back when such men as
+Pier Luigi tap you, you will not be likely to see old age.  Body of Satan!
+I would that Galeotto were here!  If aught should happen to you..."  He
+checked, and set a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"For your father's sake I love you, Agostino, and I speak as one who loves
+you."
+
+"I know, I know!" I cried, seizing his hand in a sudden penitence.  "I am
+an ingrate and a fool.  And you upheld me nobly at table.  Sir, I swear
+that I will not submit you to so much concern again."
+
+He patted my shoulder in a very friendly fashion, and his kindly eyes
+smiled upon me.  "If you but promise that--for your own sake, Agostino--we
+need say no more.  God send this papal by-blow takes his departure soon,
+for he is as unwelcome here as he is unbidden."
+
+"The foul toad!" said I.  "To see him daily, hourly bending over Monna
+Bianca, whispering and ogling--ugh!"
+
+"It offends you, eh?  And for that I love you!  There.  Be circumspect and
+patient, and all will be well.  Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure
+insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes."
+
+Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort.  And in the
+days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell,
+there was little provocation to do otherwise.  The Duke ignored me, and all
+the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo.  And
+meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality to
+which they had not been bidden.
+
+Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach
+Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview.  Nor for
+that matter was I afforded the opportunity.  The Duke and Cosimo were ever
+at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given place to his
+captain, for Cosimo's was the greater assiduity now.
+
+The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon hawking-
+parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was
+sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there
+was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we danced,
+though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having neither the
+will nor the art.
+
+One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
+footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice behind
+me stirred me out of my musings.  She had espied me up there and had come
+to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided her, neither
+addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me since the first
+brazen speech on her arrival.
+
+"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have caught
+the Duke in her net of innocence," said she.
+
+I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face
+she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face
+that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti.
+
+"You are greatly daring," said I.
+
+"To take in vain the name of her white innocence?" she answered, smiling
+superciliously.  And then she grew more serious.  "Look, Agostino, we were
+friends once.  I would be your friend now."
+
+"It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression."
+
+"Ha!  We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the ways
+of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised our eyes
+to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!"  She spoke sneeringly.
+
+"What is that to you?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing," she answered frankly.  "But that another may have raised his
+eyes to her is something.  I am honest with you.  If this child is aught to
+you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more
+closely than you are wont.  A word in season.  That is all my message."
+
+"Stay!" I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the
+shadows of the gallery.
+
+She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery and
+insolence.
+
+"Have I moved you into sensibility?" quoth she.  "Will you condescend to
+questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed," she added with a
+stinging scorn, you have every right to do."
+
+"Tell me more precisely what you mean," I begged her, for her words had
+moved me fearfully.
+
+"Gesu!" she exclaimed.  "Can I be more precise?  Must I add counsels?  Why,
+then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's health,
+and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into retreat in
+some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end.  And I can promise
+you that in that case it will be the sooner ended.  Now, I think that even
+a saint should understand me."
+
+With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.
+
+Of the gibe I took little heed.  What imported was her warning.  And I did
+not doubt that she had good cause to warn me.  I remembered with a shudder
+her old-time habit of listening at doors.  It was very probable that in
+like manner had she now gathered information that entitled her to give me
+such advice.
+
+It was incredible.  And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my
+blindness and Cavalcanti's.  What precisely Farnese's designs might be I
+could not conceive.  It was hard to think that he should dare so much as
+Giuliana more than hinted.  It may be that, after all, there was no more
+than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to do
+what she could to avert it.
+
+In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal of
+Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome visit
+to an end.
+
+Indeed, it was so.  It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the blindest
+idiot should have perceived.
+
+That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE
+
+
+Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti in the little
+anteroom that communicated with his bedroom.  My patience was tried, for he
+was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all the sounds
+had died down in the castle and it was known that all had retired, and
+still there was no sign of him.
+
+I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did he
+think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing upon
+this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the door
+opened, and at last he appeared.
+
+When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light his
+face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some unusual
+agitation.  He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and the hand
+with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when he bade
+them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.
+
+When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a tall,
+carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet in the
+middle of the room.
+
+But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me,
+and--
+
+"What is it, Agostino?" he inquired.
+
+"I have thought," I answered after a moment's hesitation, "of a means by
+which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end."
+
+And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed
+Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were she
+removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to amuse him
+and he would go his ways.
+
+There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere
+suggestion contained in my faltering words.  He looked at me gravely and
+sadly out of that stern face of his.
+
+"I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago," he said.  "But who
+was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his
+visit?  For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino.  It is not he
+who has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca.  Were such the
+case, I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the Duke
+of Parma.  No, no.  My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your cousin
+Cosimo."
+
+I looked at him, amazed.  It could not be.  I remembered Giuliana's words.
+Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen no
+cause to intervene.  Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure in
+witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom I had
+raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already usurped so
+much that was my own.
+
+"0, you must be mistaken," I cried.
+
+"Mistaken?" he echoed.  He shook his head, smiling bitterly.  "There is no
+possibility of mistake.  I am just come from an interview with the Duke and
+his fine captain.  Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's hand
+for Cosimo d'Anguissola."
+
+"And you?" I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
+
+"And I declined the honour," he answered sternly, rising in his agitation.
+"I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon the irrevocable
+quality of my determination; and then this pestilential Duke had the
+effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he had the power to
+compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind me that behind him he
+had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy Office.  And when I
+defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of the Emperor, he
+suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the Court of the
+Inquisition."
+
+"My God!" I cried in liveliest fear.
+
+"An idle threat!" he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride the
+room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
+
+"What have I to do with the Holy Office?" he snorted.  "But they had worse
+indignities for me, Agostino.  They mocked me with a reminder that Giovanni
+d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend.  They told me they knew it to have
+been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of Mondolfo, and
+to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano, Mondolfo and
+Carmina.  And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo d'Anguissola was the
+way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of Mondolfo already, should
+receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the Duke."
+
+"Was such indeed your intention?" I asked scarce above a whisper, overawed
+as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and wickedness
+have cost them.
+
+He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking up
+into my face.  "It has been my fondest dream, Agostino," he said.
+
+I groaned.  "It is a dream that never can be realized now," said I
+miserably.
+
+"Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of Mondolfo,"
+he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
+
+I reddened and paled under his glance.
+
+"Nor otherwise," said I.  "For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt which
+I deserve.  Better a thousand times that I should have remained out of this
+world to which you caused me to return--unless, indeed, my present torment
+is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed, I was but brought
+back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil that I have wrought."
+
+He smiled a little.  "Is it so with you?  Why, then, you afflict yourself
+too soon, boy.  You are over-hasty to judge.  I am her father, and my
+little Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply.  I read her better
+than do you, Agostino.  But we will talk of this again."
+
+He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had
+fired me with such exalted hopes.  "Meanwhile, there is this Farnese dog
+with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house.  He
+threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable mind--until
+I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his henchman; and
+he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought, and impudently
+assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola--in that guelphic jackal--I had a
+husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti."
+
+He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
+
+"The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence," I said.  "Let her seek
+shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his
+departure.  And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little
+inclination to linger."
+
+He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his clear-
+cut face.  "Never!" he snapped.  "The thing could have been done two weeks
+ago, when they first came.  It would have seemed that the step was
+determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not alter
+my plans.  But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is not my
+way.
+
+"Go, Agostino.  Let me have the night to think.  I know not how to act.
+But we will talk again to-morrow."
+
+It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were
+face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in hand.
+
+That I slept little will be readily conceived.  I plagued my mind with this
+matter of Cosimo's suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate intent--to bring
+Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it one who was devoted
+to Farnese.
+
+And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had said:
+that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter's mind.  My hopes rose
+and tortured me with the suspense they held.  Then came to me the awful
+thought that here there might be a measure of retribution, and that it
+might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had unconsciously
+bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this pure and holy love.
+
+I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think,
+that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and
+that so we might have speech.
+
+Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me.  I had been pacing the terrace
+some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands
+through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw her
+issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
+
+Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her without
+a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
+
+"I was seeking you, Agostino," she said in greeting.
+
+"Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go," said I.
+
+But she was resolutely barring my way.  A slow smile parted her scarlet
+lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so lovely
+and now I loathed.
+
+"I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you were
+in no such haste to shun me."
+
+I crimsoned under her insolent regard.  "Have you the courage to remember?"
+I exclaimed.
+
+"Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories," said she.
+
+"Happy?" quoth I.
+
+"Do you deny that we were happy on that morning?--it would be just about
+this time of year, two years ago.  And what a change in you since then!
+Heigho!  And yet men say that woman is inconstant!"
+
+"I did not know you then," I answered harshly.
+
+"And do you know me now?  Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you
+gathered wisdom in the wilderness?"
+
+I looked at her with detestation in my eyes.  The effrontery, the ease and
+insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter
+shamelessness and heartlessness.
+
+"The day after...after your husband died," I said, "I saw you in a dell
+near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara.  In that hour I knew you."
+
+She bit her lip, then smiled again.  "What would you?" answered she.
+"Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast.  I went in danger of
+my life.  You had basely deserted me.  My Lord Gambara, more generous,
+offered me shelter and protection.  I was not born for martyrdom and
+dungeons," she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness.  "Are you, of
+all men, the one to blame me?"
+
+"I have not the right, I know," I answered.  "Nor do I blame you more than
+I blame myself.  But since I blame myself most bitterly--since I despise
+and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings are for
+you.  And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to go."
+
+"I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino," she answered, all
+unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what emotions
+might be hers.  "It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of Pagliano."
+
+"There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon," said I.
+
+"It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has
+already heard it from me."
+
+"The thing you told me was false," said I.  "It was begotten of fear to see
+your own base interests thwarted.  It is proven so by the circumstance that
+the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d'Anguissola."
+
+"For Cosimo?" she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful.
+"For Cosimo?  You are sure of this?"  The urgency of her tone was such that
+it held me there and compelled my answer.
+
+"I have it from my lord himself."
+
+She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them,
+and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in every
+line of her face.
+
+"Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?" she mused.
+
+And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful.  "I see
+it!" she exclaimed.  "0, it is as clear as crystal.  This is the Roman
+manner of using complaisant husbands."
+
+"Madonna!" I rebuked her angrily--angry to think that anyone should
+conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
+
+"Gesu!" she returned with a shrug.  "The thing is plain enough if you will
+but look at it.  Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke
+the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano.  But once she is
+safely away--as Cosimo's wife..."
+
+"Stop!" I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth.  Then
+collecting myself.  "Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so
+infamous a compact?"
+
+"Lend himself?  That pander?  You do not know your cousin.  If you have any
+interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay, and
+see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is
+consigned.  He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is no
+sanctuary he will respect.  So let the thing be done speedily and in
+secret."
+
+I looked at her between doubt and horror.
+
+"Why should you mistrust me?" she asked, answering my look.  "I have been
+frank with you.  It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve.
+You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino."  And the
+sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking.  "No, no,
+beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are in
+peril."
+
+I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such
+interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
+
+"Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint," she sneered.  "Having cast me off and
+taken up holiness, you have the right, of course."  And with that she moved
+past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look
+at me again.  And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you shall find,
+though little was it to have been supposed so then.
+
+I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more
+closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise.  But
+then I reflected that it mattered little.  What really mattered was that
+her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
+
+I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with Cosimo.
+
+"Still pursuing the old love," he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head
+in the direction of Giuliana.  "We ever return to it in the end, they say;
+yet you had best have a care.  It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi
+in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant."
+
+I wondered was there some double meaning in the words.  I made shift to
+pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me
+and tapped my shoulder.
+
+"One other thing, sweet cousin.  You little deserve a warning at my hands.
+Yet you shall have it.  Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your
+feet.  An evil is hanging over you here."
+
+I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
+
+"It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal," said I,
+and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the
+colour recede from it.
+
+"What do you mean?" he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by the
+term I had employed.  "What things has that trull dared to..."
+
+I cut in.  "I mean, sir, to warn you.  "Do not drive me to do more."
+
+We were quite alone.  Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us
+the empty gardens.  He was without weapons as was I.  But my manner was so
+fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.
+
+I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
+
+I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen.  Wrapped in a
+gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the matter
+thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove Bianca not
+later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it.  And to arrange it
+he would ride forth at once.
+
+I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I lounged
+in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and considering
+whether to impart to him the further information I had that morning
+gleaned.  In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring myself to tell
+him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting against Bianca.  It
+was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me.  Indeed I could
+scarcely bear to think of it.
+
+Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went along
+the corridor and out upon the gallery.  As side by side we were descending
+the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the courtyard.
+
+Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the
+foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel cap
+upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese.  In
+attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
+
+We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten
+upon my arm.
+
+"What is it?" I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed.  "These are familiars
+of the Holy Office," he answered me, his tone very grave.  In that moment
+the Duke, turning, espied us.  He came towards the staircase to meet us,
+and his face, too, was very solemn.
+
+We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was
+entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
+
+"Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano," said Farnese.  "The Holy Office has
+sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been
+seeking for over a year."
+
+"For me?" I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti.  "What has the
+Holy Office to do with me?"
+
+The leading familiar advanced.  "If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there is
+a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to answer
+before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome."
+
+"Sacrilege?" I echoed, entirely bewildered--for my first thought had been
+that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti, and that the
+dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter secretly, there
+would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had evoked its power.
+
+The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was a
+matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I well
+knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.
+
+"Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?" I asked.
+
+"The tribunal will inform you," replied the familiar--a tall, sallow,
+elderly man.
+
+"The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity," said
+Cavalcanti suddenly.  "Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are
+not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano."
+
+The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching.  Behind me
+in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn to
+look.  My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
+
+"You will not be so ill-advised, my lord," he was saying, "as to compel us
+to use force."
+
+"You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it," laughed
+Cavalcanti, tossing his great head.  "I have five score men-at-arms within
+these walls, Messer Black�clothes."
+
+The familiar bowed.  "That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as you
+say.  But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously against
+the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty which they
+are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of their just
+resentment."
+
+Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this
+tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him.  But in that instant I
+seized his arm.
+
+"It is a trap!" I muttered in his ear.  "Beware!"
+
+I was no more than in time.  I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face a
+sly smile--the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come venturing from
+its lair.  And I saw the smile perish--to confirm my suspicions--when at my
+whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his rashness.
+
+Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
+
+"I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir," said I.  "Meanwhile, and you,
+gentlemen--give us leave apart."  And I drew the bewildered Cavalcanti
+aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the gallery.
+
+"My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake," I implored him.  "I am assured that
+here is nothing but a trap baited for you.  Do not gorge their bait as your
+valour urges you.  Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection.  Do you not see
+that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against you, and
+that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you?  Indeed, if
+they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano, had been guilty of
+contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy Inquisition, that bigot
+Charles V would be the first to deliver you over to the ghastly practices
+of that tribunal.  It should not need, my lord, that I should tell you
+this."
+
+"My God!" he groaned in utter misery.  "But you, Agostino?"
+
+"There is nothing against me," I answered impatiently.  "What sacrilege
+have I ever committed?  The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived with
+a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi there.  Courage, then, and self-
+restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims.  Come, my lord, I will ride
+to Rome with them.  And do not doubt that I shall return very soon."
+
+He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in every
+line of a face that was wont to look so resolute.  He knew himself between
+the sword and the wall.
+
+"I would that Galeotto were here!" cried that man usually so self-reliant.
+"What will he say to me when he comes?  You were a sacred charge, boy."
+
+"Say to him that I will be returning shortly--which must be true.  Come,
+then.  You may serve me this way.  The other way you will but have to
+endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is
+precisely what they seek."
+
+He braced himself at the thought of Bianca.  We turned, and in silence we
+paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that
+Cavalcanti's face had grown very haggard.
+
+"I yield me, sir," I said to the familiar.
+
+"A wise decision," sneered the Duke.
+
+"I trust you'll find it so, my lord," I answered, sneering too.
+
+They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti, I
+mounted and my funereal escort closed about me.  We rode across the
+courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the
+familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the
+stoutest-hearted man.  As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on
+the morning air:
+
+"Agostino!"
+
+Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
+
+I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing in
+the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after me,
+her arms outheld.  And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank with a
+little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
+
+I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and I
+prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to pay
+for all the sins of his recreant life.
+
+And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned to
+tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry of
+Bianca's made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the Holy
+Office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PAPAL BULL
+
+
+And now, that you may understand to the full the thing that happened, it is
+necessary that I should relate it here in its proper sequence, although
+that must entail my own withdrawal for a time from pages upon which too
+long I have intruded my own doings and thoughts and feelings.
+
+I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share in
+it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be a
+witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail of
+what this one said and how that one looked.
+
+I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim escort,
+and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the door of my
+dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into the courtyard of
+Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
+
+He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was
+witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging in
+the gallery at the time.
+
+Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing of the
+Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma, whilst the
+Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms garrisoned in
+Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free company.
+
+But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from
+suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved
+himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings to
+the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense, and
+craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
+
+The condottiero swung down from his saddle unaided--a thing which he could
+do even when full-armed--and stood before Farnese, a grim, dust-stained
+figure, with a curious smile twisting his scarred face.
+
+"Why," said he, in answer, "I have been upon business that concerns your
+magnificence somewhat closely."
+
+And with Falcone at his heels he advanced, the horses relinquished to the
+grooms who had hastened forward.
+
+"Upon business that concerns me?" quoth the Duke, intrigued.
+
+"Why, yes," said Galeotto, who stood now face to face with Farnese at the
+foot of the steps up which the Duke's attendants were straggling.  "I have
+been recruiting forces, and since one of these days your magnificence is to
+give me occupation, you will see that the matter concerns you."
+
+Above leaned Cavalcanti, his face grey and haggard, without the heart to
+relish the wicked humour of Galeotto that could make jests for his own
+entertainment.  True there was also Falcone to overhear, appreciate, and
+grin under cover of his great brown hand.
+
+"Does this mean that you are come to your senses on the score of a stipend,
+Ser Galeotto?" quoth the Duke.
+
+"I am not a trader out of the Giudecca to haggle over my wares," replied
+the burly condottiero.  "But I nothing doubt that your magnificence and I
+will come to an understanding at the last."
+
+"Five thousand ducats yearly is my offer," said Farnese, "provided that you
+bring three hundred lances."
+
+"Ah, well!" said Galeotto softly, "you may come to regret one of these
+days, highness, that you did not think well to pay me the price I ask."
+
+"Regret?" quoth the Duke, with a frown of displeasure at so much frankness.
+
+"When you see me engaged in the service of some other," Galeotto explained.
+"You need a condottiero, my lord; and you may come to need one even more
+than you do now."
+
+"I have the Lord of Mondolfo," said the Duke.
+
+Galeotto stared at him with round eyes.  "The Lord of Mondolfo?" quoth he,
+intentionally uncomprehending.
+
+"You have not heard?  Why, here he stands."  And he waved a jewelled hand
+towards Cosimo, a handsome figure in green and blue, standing nearest to
+Farnese.
+
+Galeotto looked at this Anguissola, and his brow grew very black.
+
+"So," he said slowly, "you are the Lord of Mondolfo, eh?  I think you are
+very brave."
+
+"I trust my valour will not be lacking when the proof of it is needed,"
+answered Cosimo haughtily, feeling the other's unfriendly mood and
+responding to it.
+
+"It cannot," said Galeotto, "since you have the courage to assume that
+title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser Cosimo.
+Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was a truly
+miserable end.  His father before him was poisoned by his best friend, and
+as for the last who legitimately bore that title--why, none can say that
+the poor lad was fortunate."
+
+"The last who legitimately bore that title?" cried Cosimo, very ruffled.
+"I think, sir, it is your aim to affront me."
+
+"And what is more," continued the condottiero, as if Cosimo had not spoken,
+"not only are the lords of Mondolfo unlucky in themselves, but they are a
+source of ill luck to those they serve.  Giovanni's father had but taken
+service with Cesare Borgia when the latter's ruin came at the hands of Pope
+Julius II.  What Giovanni's own friendship cost his friends none knows
+better than your highness.  So that, when all is said, I think you had
+better look about you for another condottiero, magnificent."
+
+The magnificent stood gnawing his beard and brooding darkly, for he was a
+grossly superstitious fellow who studied omens and dabbled in horoscopes,
+divinations, and the like.  And he was struck by the thing that Galeotto
+said.  He looked at Cosimo darkly.  But Cosimo laughed.
+
+"Who believes such old wives' tales?  Not I, for one."
+
+"The more fool you!" snapped the Duke.
+
+"Indeed, indeed," Galeotto applauded.  "A disbelief in omens can but spring
+from an ignorance of such matters.  You should study them, Messer Cosimo.
+I have done so, and I tell you that the lordship of Mondolfo is unlucky to
+all dark-complexioned men.  And when such a man has a mole under the left
+ear as you have--in itself a sign of death by hanging--it is well to avoid
+all risks."
+
+"Now that is very strange!" muttered the Duke, much struck by this
+whittling down of Cosimo's chances, whilst Cosimo shrugged impatiently and
+smiled contemptuously.  "You seem to be greatly versed in these matters,
+Ser Galeotto," added Farnese.
+
+"He who would succeed in whatever he may undertake should qualify to read
+all signs," said Galeotto sententiously.  "I have sought this knowledge."
+
+"Do you see aught in me that you can read?" inquired the Duke in all
+seriousness.
+
+Galeotto considered him a moment without any trace in his eyes of the
+wicked mockery that filled his soul.  "Why," he answered slowly, "not in
+your own person, magnificent--leastways, not upon so brief a glance.  But
+since you ask me, I have lately been considering the new coinage of your
+highness."
+
+"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the Duke, all eagerness, whilst several of his
+followers came crowding nearer--for all the world is interested in omens.
+"What do you read there?"
+
+"Your fate, I think."
+
+"My fate?"
+
+"Have you a coin upon you?"
+
+Farnese produced a gold ducat, fire-new from the mint.  The condottiero
+took it and placed his finger upon the four letters P L A C--the
+abbreviation of "Placentia" in the inscription.
+
+"P--L--A--C," he spelled.  "That contains your fate, magnificent, and you
+may read it for yourself."  And he returned the coin to the Duke, who
+stared at the letters foolishly and then at this reader of omens.
+
+"But what is the meaning of PLAC?" he asked, and he had paled a little with
+excitement.
+
+"I have a feeling that it is a sign.  I cannot say more.  I can but point
+it out to you, my lord, and leave the deciphering of it to yourself, who
+are more skilled than most men in such matters.  Have I your excellency's
+leave to go doff this dusty garb?" he concluded.
+
+"Ay, go, sir," answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted
+brows over the coin that bore his image.
+
+"Come, Falcone," said Galeotto, and with his equerry at his heels he set
+his foot on the first step.
+
+Cosimo leaned forward, a sneer on his white hawk-face, "I trust, Ser
+Galeotto, that you are a better condottiero than a charlatan."
+
+"And you, sir," said Galeotto, smiling his sweetest in return, "are, I
+trust, a better charlatan than a condottiero."
+
+He went up the stairs, the gaudy throng making way before him, and he came
+at last to the top, where stood the Lord of Pagliano awaiting him, a great
+trouble in his eyes.  They clasped hands in silence, and Cavalcanti went in
+person to lead his guest to his apartments.
+
+"You have not a happy air," said Galeotto as they went.  "And, Body of God!
+it is no matter for marvel considering the company you keep.  How long has
+the Farnese beast been here?"
+
+"His visit is now in its third week," said Cavalcanti, answering
+mechanically.
+
+Galeotto swore in sheer surprise.  "By the Host!  And what keeps him?"
+
+Cavalcanti shrugged and let his arms fall to his sides.  To Galeotto this
+proud, stern baron seemed most oddly dispirited.
+
+"I see that we must talk," he said.  "Things are speeding well and swiftly
+now," he added, dropping his voice.  "But more of that presently.  I have
+much to tell you."
+
+When they had reached the chamber that was Galeotto's, and the doors were
+closed and Falcone was unbuckling his master's spurs--"Now for my news,"
+said the condottiero.  "But first, to spare me repetitions, let us have
+Agostino here.  Where is he?"
+
+The look on Cavalcanti's face caused Galeotto to throw up his head like a
+spirited animal that scents danger.
+
+"Where is he?" he repeated, and old Falcone's fingers fell idle upon the
+buckle on which they were engaged.
+
+Cavalcanti's answer was a groan.  He flung his long arms to the ceiling, as
+if invoking Heaven's aid; then he let them fall again heavily, all strength
+gone out of them.
+
+Galeotto stood an instant looking at him and turning very white.  Suddenly
+he stepped forward, leaving Falcone upon his knees.
+
+"What is this?" he said, his voice a rumble of thunder.  "Where is the boy?
+I say."
+
+The Lord of Pagliano could not meet the gaze of those steel coloured eyes.
+
+"0 God!" he groaned.  "How shall I tell you?"
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Galeotto, his voice hard.
+
+"No, no--not dead.  But...But..."  The plight of one usually so strong, so
+full of mastery and arrogance, was pitiful.
+
+"But what?" demanded the condottiero.  "Gesu!  Am I a woman, or a man
+without sorrows, that you need to stand hesitating?  Whatever it may be,
+speak, then, and tell me."
+
+"He is in the clutches of the Holy Office," answered Cavalcanti miserably.
+
+Galeotto looked at him, his pallor increasing.  Then he sat down suddenly,
+and, elbows on knees, he took his head in his hands and spoke no word for a
+spell, during which time Falcone, still kneeling, looked from one to the
+other in an agony of apprehension and impatience to hear more.
+
+Neither noticed the presence of the equerry; nor would it have mattered if
+they had, for he was trusty as steel, and they had no secrets from him.
+
+At last, having gained some measure of self-control, Galeotto begged to
+know what had happened, and Cavalcanti related the event.
+
+"What could I do?  What could I do?" he cried when he had finished.
+
+"You let them take him?" said Galeotto, like a man who repeats the thing he
+has been told, because he cannot credit it.  "You let them take him?"
+
+"What alternative had I?" groaned Cavalcanti, his face ashen and seared
+with pain.
+
+"There is that between us, Ettore, that...that will not let me credit this,
+even though you tell it me."
+
+And now the wretched Lord of Pagliano began to use the very arguments that
+I had used to him.  He spoke of Cosimo's suit of his daughter, and how the
+Duke sought to constrain him to consent to the alliance.  He urged that in
+this matter of the Holy Office was a trap set for him to place him in
+Farnese's power.
+
+"A trap?" roared the condottiero, leaping up.  "What trap?  Where is this
+trap?  You had five score men-at-arms under your orders here--three score
+of them my own men, each one of whom would have laid down his life for me,
+and you allowed the boy to be taken hence by six rascals from the Holy
+Office, intimidated by a paltry score of troopers that rode with this
+filthy Duke!"
+
+"Nay, nay--not that," the other protested.  "Had I dared to raise a finger
+I should have brought myself within the reach of the Inquisition without
+benefiting Agostino.  That was the trap, as Agostino himself perceived.  It
+was he himself who urged me not to intervene, but to let them take him
+hence, since there was no possible charge which the Holy Office could
+prefer against him."
+
+"No charge!" cried Galeotto, with a withering scorn.  "Did villainy ever
+want for invention?  And this trap?  Body of God, Ettore, am I to account
+you a fool after all these years?  What trap was there that could be sprung
+upon you as things stood?  Why, man, the game was in your hands entirely.
+Here was this Farnese in your power.  What better hostage than that could
+you have held?  You had but to whistle your war-dogs to heel and seize his
+person, demanding of the Pope his father a plenary absolution and indemnity
+for yourself and for Agostino from any prosecutions of the Holy Office ere
+you surrendered him.  And had they attempted to employ force against you,
+you could have held them in check by threatening to hang the Duke unless
+the parchments you demanded were signed and delivered to you.  My God,
+Ettore!  Must I tell you this?"
+
+Cavalcanti sank to a seat and took his head in his hands.
+
+"You are right," he said.  "I deserve all your reproaches.  I have been a
+fool.  Worse--I have wanted for courage."  And then, suddenly, he reared
+his head again, and his glance kindled.  "But it is not yet too late," he
+cried, and started up.  "It is still time!"
+
+"Time!" sneered Galeotto.  "Why, the boy is in their hands.  It is hostage
+for hostage now, a very different matter.  He is lost--irretrievably lost!"
+he ended, groaning.  "We can but avenge him.  To save him is beyond our
+power."
+
+"No," said Cavalcanti.  "It is not.  I am a dolt, a dotard; and I have been
+the cause of it.  Then I shall pay the price."
+
+"What price?" quoth the condottiero, pondering the other with an eye that
+held no faintest gleam of hope.
+
+"Within an hour you shall have in your hands the necessary papers to set
+Agostino at liberty; and you shall carry them yourself to Rome.  It is the
+amend I owe you.  It shall be made."
+
+"But how is it possible?"
+
+"It is possible, and it shall be done.  And when it is done you may count
+upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential Duke
+in ruin."
+
+He strode to the door, his step firm once more and his face set, though it
+was very grey.  "I will leave you now.  But you may count upon the
+fulfilment of my promise."
+
+He went out, leaving Galeotto and Falcone alone, and the condottiero flung
+himself into a chair and sat there moodily, deep in thought, still in his
+dusty garments and with no thought for changing them.  Falcone stood by the
+window, looking out upon the gardens and not daring to intrude upon his
+master's mood.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti found them a hour later when he returned.  He brought a
+parchment, to which was appended a great seal bearing the Pontifical arms.
+He thrust it into Galeotto's hand.
+
+"There," he said, "is the discharge of the debt which through my weakness
+and folly I have incurred."
+
+Galeotto looked at the parchment, then at Cavalcanti, and then at the
+parchment once more.  It was a papal bull of plenary pardon and indemnity
+to me.
+
+"How came you by this?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Is not Farnese the Pope's son?" quoth Cavalcanti scornfully.
+
+"But upon what terms was it conceded?  If it involves your honour, your
+life, or your liberty, here's to make an end of it."  And he held it across
+in his hands as if to tear it, looking up at the Lord of Pagliano.
+
+"It involves none of these," the latter answered steadily.  "You had best
+set out at once.  The Holy Office can be swift to act."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+
+I was haled from my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figures that
+looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their heads and faces
+covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for their eyes.  Seen
+by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried to that
+subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, their very
+hands tucked away into the wide�mouthed sleeves of their habits, looked
+spectral and lurid--horrific messengers of death.
+
+By chill, dark passages of stone, through which our steps reverberated,
+they brought me to a pillared, vaulted underground chamber, lighted by
+torches in iron brackets on the walls.
+
+On a dais stood an oaken writing-table bearing two massive wax tapers and a
+Crucifix.  At this table sat a portly, swarthy-visaged man in the black
+robes of the order of St. Dominic.  Immediately below and flanking him on
+either hand sat two mute cowled figures to do the office of amanuenses.
+
+Away on the right, where the shadows were but faintly penetrated by the
+rays of the torches, stood an engine of wood somewhat of the size and
+appearance of the framework of a couch, but with stout straps of leather to
+pinion the patient, and enormous wooden screws upon which the frame could
+be made to lengthen or contract.  From the ceiling grey ropes dangled from
+pulleys, like the tentacles of some dread monster of cruelty.
+
+One glance into that gloomy part of the chamber was enough for me.
+
+Repressing a shudder, I faced the inquisitor, and thereafter kept my eyes
+upon him to avoid the sight of those other horrors.  And he was horror
+enough for any man in my circumstances to envisage.
+
+He was very fat, with a shaven, swarthy face and the dewlap of an ox.  In
+that round fleshliness his eyes were sunken like two black buttons,
+malicious through their very want of expression.  His mouth was loose-
+lipped and gluttonous and cruel.
+
+When he spoke, the deep rumbling quality of his voice was increased by the
+echoes of that vaulted place.
+
+"What is your name?" he said.
+
+I am Agostino d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and..."
+
+"Pass over your titles," he boomed.  "The Holy Office takes no account of
+worldly rank.  What is your age?"
+
+"I am in my twenty-first year."
+
+"Benedicamus Dominum," he commented, though I could not grasp the
+appositeness of the comment.  "You stand accused, Agostino d'Anguissola, of
+sacrilege and of defiling holy things.  What have you to say?  Do you
+confess your guilt?"
+
+"I am so far from confessing it," I answered, "that I have yet to learn
+what is the nature of the sacrilege with which I am charged.  I am
+conscious of no such sin.  Far from it, indeed..."
+
+"You shall be informed," he interrupted, imposing silence upon me by a wave
+of his fat hand; and heaving his vast bulk sideways--"Read him the
+indictment," he bade one of the amanuenses.
+
+From the depths of a vizored cowl came a thin, shrill voice:
+
+"The Holy Office has knowledge that Agostino d'Anguissola did for a space
+of some six months, during the winter of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1544,
+and the spring of the year of Our Blessed Lord 1545, pursue a fraudulent
+and sacrilegious traffic, adulterating, for moneys which he extorted from
+the poor and the faithful, things which are holy, and adapting them to his
+own base purposes.  It is charged against him that in a hermitage on Monte
+Orsaro he did claim for an image of St. Sebastian that it was miraculous,
+that it had power to heal suffering and that miraculously it bled from its
+wounds each year during Passion Week, whence it resulted that pilgrimages
+were made to this false shrine and great store of alms was collected by the
+said Agostino d'Anguissola, which moneys he appropriated to his own
+purposes.  It is further known that ultimately he fled the place, fearing
+discovery, and that after his flight the image was discovered broken and
+the cunning engine by which this diabolical sacrilege was perpetrated was
+revealed."
+
+Throughout the reading, the fleshy eyes of the inquisitor had been
+steadily, inscrutably regarding me.  He passed a hand over his pendulous
+chin, as the thin voice faded into silence.
+
+"You have heard," said he.
+
+"I have heard a tangle of falsehood," answered I.  "Never was truth more
+untruly told than this."
+
+The beady eyes vanished behind narrowing creases of fat; and yet I knew
+that they were still regarding me.  Presently they appeared again.
+
+"Do you deny that the image contained this hideous engine of fraud?"
+
+"I do not," I answered.
+
+"Set it down," he eagerly bade one of the amanuenses.  "He confesses thus
+much."  And then to me--" Do you deny that you occupied that hermitage
+during the season named?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Set it down," he said again.  "What, then, remains?" he asked me.
+
+"It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud.  The trickster was a
+pretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I was present.
+I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in the miraculous image,
+refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested to me, to credit that any
+man could have dared so vile and sacrilegious a thing.  In the end, when it
+was broken and its fraud discovered, I quitted that ghastly shrine of
+Satan's in horror and disgust."
+
+There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face.  "That is the obvious
+defence," he said slowly.  "But it does not explain the appropriation of
+the moneys."
+
+"I appropriated none," I cried angrily.  That is the foulest lie of all."
+
+"Do you deny that alms were made?"
+
+"Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware.  A vessel of
+baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of the faithful.  It
+had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a part of these alms among
+the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build a bridge over the Bagnanza
+torrent, which was greatly needed."
+
+"Well, well?" quoth he.  "And when you left you took with you the moneys
+that had been collected?"
+
+"I did not," I answered.  "I gave the matter no thought.  When I left I
+took nothing with me--not so much as the habit I had worn in that
+hermitage."
+
+There was a pause.  Then he spoke slowly.  "Such is not the evidence before
+the Holy Office."
+
+"What evidence?" I cried, breaking in upon his speech.  "Where is my
+accuser?  Set me face to face with him."
+
+Slowly he shook his huge head with its absurd fringe of greasy locks about
+the tonsured scalp--that symbol of the Crown of Thorns.
+
+"You must surely know that such is not the way of the Holy Office.  In its
+wisdom this tribunal holds that to produce delators would be to subject
+them perhaps to molestation, and thus dry up the springs of knowledge and
+information which it now enjoys.  So that your request is idle as idle as
+is the attempt at defence that you have made, the falsehoods with which you
+have sought to clog the wheels of justice."
+
+"Falsehood, sir monk?" quoth I, so fiercely that one of my attendants set a
+restraining hand upon my arm.
+
+The beady eyes vanished and reappeared, and they considered me impassively.
+
+"Your sin, Agostino d'Anguissola," said he in his booming, level voice, "is
+the most hideous that the wickedness of man could conceive or diabolical
+greed put into execution.  It is the sin that more than any other closes
+the door to mercy.  It is the offence of Simon Mage, and it is to be
+expiated only through the gates of death.  You shall return hence to your
+cell, and when the door closes upon you, it closes upon you for all time in
+life, nor shall you ever see your fellow-man again.  There hunger and
+thirst shall be your executioners, slowly to deprive you of a life of which
+you have not known how to make better use.  Without light or food or drink
+shall you remain there until you die.  This is the punishment for such
+sacrilege as yours."
+
+I could not believe it.  I stood before him what time he mouthed out those
+horrible and emotionless words.  He paused a moment, and again came that
+broad gesture of his that stroked mouth and chin.  Then he resumed:
+
+"So much for your body.  There remains your soul.  In its infinite mercy,
+the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in this life, and
+that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell.  Therefore it
+urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowal ere you go
+hence.  Confess, then, my son, and save your soul."
+
+"Confess?" I echoed.  "Confess to a falsehood?  I have told you the truth
+of this matter.  I tell you that in all the world there is none less prone
+to sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout and faithful.
+These are lies which have been uttered to my hurt.  In dooming me you doom
+an innocent man.  Be it so.  I do not know that I have found the world so
+delectable a place as to quit it with any great regret.  My blood be upon
+your own heads and upon this iniquitous and monstrous tribunal.  But spare
+yourselves at least the greater offence of asking my confession of a
+falsehood."
+
+The little eyes had vanished.  The face grew very evil, stirred at last
+into animosity by my denunciation of that court.  Then the inscrutable mask
+slipped once more over that odious countenance.
+
+He took up a little mallet, and struck a gong that stood beside him.
+
+I heard a creaking of hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to my right,
+where I had perceived no door.  Two men came forth--brawny, muscular,
+bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoats cut deep at the
+neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked.  The foremost carried a
+thong of leather in his hands.
+
+"The hoist," said the inquisitor shortly.
+
+The men advanced towards me and came to replace the familiars between whom
+I had been standing.  Each seized an arm, and they held me so.  I made no
+resistance.
+
+"Will you confess?" the inquisitor demanded.  There is still time to save
+yourself from torture."
+
+But already the torture had commenced, for the very threat of it is known
+as the first degree.  I was in despair.  Death I could suffer.  But under
+torments I feared that my strength might fail.  I felt my flesh creeping
+and tightening upon my body, which had grown very cold with the awful chill
+of fear; my hair seemed to bristle and stiffen until I thought that I could
+feel each separate thread of it.
+
+"I swear to you that I have spoken the truth," I cried desperately.  "I
+swear it by the sacred image of Our Redeemer standing there before you."
+
+"Shall we believe the oath of an unbeliever attainted of sacrilege?" he
+grumbled, and he almost seemed to sneer.
+
+"Believe or not," I answered.  "But believe this--that one day you shall
+stand face to face with a Judge Whom there is no deceiving, to answer for
+the abomination that you make of justice in His Holy Name.  Let loose
+against me your worst cruelties, then; they shall be as caresses to the
+torments that will be loosed against you when your turn for Judgment
+comes."
+
+"To the hoist with him," he commanded, stretching an arm towards the grey
+tentacle-like ropes.  "We must soften his heart and break the diabolical
+pride that makes him persevere in blasphemy."
+
+They led me aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew down
+the ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a level with my
+wrists.  And this was torture of the second degree--to see its imminence.
+
+"Will you confess?" boomed the inquisitor's voice.  I made him no answer.
+
+"Strip and attach him," he commanded.
+
+The executioners laid hold of me, and in the twinkling of an eye I stood
+naked to the waist.  I caught my lips in my teeth as the ropes were being
+adjusted to my wrists, and as thus I suffered torture of the third degree.
+
+"Will you confess?" came again the question.
+
+And scarcely had it been put--for the last time, as I well knew--than the
+door was flung open, and a young man in black sprang into the chamber, and
+ran to thrust a parchment before the inquisitor.
+
+The inquisitor made a sign to the executioners to await his pleasure.
+
+I stood with throbbing pulses, and waited, instinctively warned that this
+concerned me.  The inquisitor took the parchment, considered its seals and
+then the writing upon it.
+
+That done he set it down and turned to face us.
+
+"Release him," he bade the executioners, whereat I felt as I would faint in
+the intensity of this reaction.
+
+When they had done his bidding, the Dominican beckoned me forward.  I went,
+still marvelling.
+
+"See," he said, "how inscrutable are the Divine ways, and how truth must in
+the end prevail.  Your innocence is established, after all, since the Holy
+Father himself has seen cause to intervene to save you.  You are at
+liberty.  You are free to depart and to go wheresoever you will.  This bull
+concerns you."  And he held it out to me.
+
+My mind moved through these happenings as a man moves through a dense fog,
+faltering and hesitating at every step.  I took the parchment and
+considered it.  Satisfied as to its nature, however mystified as to how the
+Pope had come to intervene, I folded the document and thrust it into my
+belt.
+
+Then the familiars of the Holy Office assisted me to resume my garments;
+and all was done now in utter silence, and for my own part in the same
+mental and dream-like confusion.
+
+At length the inquisitor waved a huge hand doorwards.  "Ite!" he said, and
+added, whilst his raised hand seemed to perform a benedictory gesture--"Pax
+Domini sit tecum."
+
+"Et cum spiritu tuo," I replied mechanically, as, turning, I stumbled out
+of that dread place in the wake of the messenger who had brought the bull,
+and who went ahead to guide me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+Above in the blessed sunlight, which hurt my eyes--for I had not seen it
+for a full week--I found Galeotto awaiting me in a bare room; and scarcely
+was I aware of his presence than his great arms went round me and enclasped
+me so fervently that his corselet almost hurt my breast, and brought back
+as in a flash a poignant memory of another man fully as tall, who had held
+me to him one night many years ago, and whose armour, too, had hurt me in
+that embrace.
+
+Then he held me at arms' length and considered me, and his steely eyes were
+blurred and moist.  He muttered something to the familiar, linked his arm
+through mine and drew me away, down passages, through doors, and so at last
+into the busy Roman street.
+
+We went in silence by ways that were well known to him but in which I
+should assuredly have lost myself, and so we came at last to a fair
+tavern--the Osteria del Sole--near the Tower of Nona.
+
+His horse was stalled here, and a servant led the way above-stairs to the
+room that he had hired.
+
+How wrong had I not been, I reflected, to announce before the Inquisition
+that I should have no regrets in leaving this world.  How ungrateful was
+that speech, considering this faithful one who loved me for my father's
+sake!  And was there not Bianca, who, surely--if her last cry, wrung from
+her by anguish, contained the truth--must love me for my own?
+
+How sweet the revulsion that now came upon me as I sank into a chair by the
+window, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that truly happy moment in
+which the grey shadow of death had been lifted from me.
+
+Servants bustled in, to spread the board with the choice meats that
+Galeotto had ordered, and great baskets of luscious fruits and flagons of
+red Puglia wine; and soon we seated ourselves to the feast.
+
+But ere I began to eat, I asked Galeotto how this miracle had been wrought;
+what magic powers he wielded that even the Holy Office must open its doors
+at his bidding.  With a glance at the servants who attended us, he bade me
+eat, saying that we should talk anon.  And as my reaction had brought a
+sharp hunger in its train, I fell to with the best will in all the world,
+and from broth to figs there were few words between us.
+
+At last, our goblets charged and the servants with�drawn, I repeated my
+inquiry.
+
+"The magic is not mine," said Galeotto.  "It is Cavalcanti's.  It was he
+who obtained this bull."
+
+And with that he set himself briefly to relate the matters that already are
+contained here concerning that transaction, but the minuter details of
+which I was later to extract from Falcone.  And as he proceeded with his
+narrative I felt myself growing cold again with apprehension, just as I had
+grown cold that morning in the hands of the executioners.  Until at last,
+seeing me dead-white, Galeotto checked to inquire what ailed me.
+
+"What--what was the price that Cavalcanti paid for this?" I inquired in
+answer.
+
+"I could not glean it, nor did I stay to insist, for there was haste.  He
+assured me that the thing had been accomplished without hurt to his honour,
+life, or liberty; and with that I was content, and spurred for Rome."
+
+"And you have never since thought what the price was that Cavalcanti might
+have paid?"
+
+He looked at me with troubled eyes.  "I confess that in this matter the
+satisfaction of coming to your salvation has made me selfish.  I have had
+thoughts for nothing else."
+
+I groaned, and flung out my arms across the table.  "He has paid such a
+price," I said, "that a thousand times sooner would I that you had left me
+where I was."
+
+He leaned forward, frowning darkly.  "What do you mean?" he cried.
+
+And then I told him what I feared; told him how Farnese had sued for
+Bianca's hand for Cosimo; how proudly and finally Cavalcanti had refused;
+how the Duke had insisted that he would remain at Pagliano until my lord
+changed his mind; how I had learned from Giuliana the horrible motive that
+urged the Duke to press for that marriage.
+
+Lastly--"And that is the price he consented to pay," I cried wildly.  "His
+daughter--that sweet virgin--was the price!  And at this hour, maybe, the
+price is paid and that detestable bargain consummated.  0, Galeotto!
+Galeotto!  Why was I not left to rot in that dungeon of the Inquisition--
+since I could have died happily, knowing naught of this?"
+
+"By the Blood of God, boy!  Do you imply that I had knowledge?  Do you
+suggest that I would have bought any life at such a price?"
+
+"No, no!" I answered.  "I know that you did not--that you could not..."
+And then I leaped to my feet.  "And we sit talking here, whilst
+this...whilst this...O God!" I sobbed.  "We may yet be in time.  To horse,
+then!  Let us away!"
+
+He, too, came to his feet.  "Ay, you are right.  It but remains to remedy
+the evil.  Come, then.  Anger shall mend my spent strength.  It can be done
+in three days.  We will ride as none ever rode yet since the world began."
+
+And we did--so desperately that by the morning of the third day, which was
+a Sunday, we were in Forli (having crossed the Apennines at Arcangelo) and
+by that same evening in Bologna.  We had not slept and we had scarcely
+rested since leaving Rome.  We were almost dead from weariness.
+
+Since such was my own case, what must have been Galeotto's?  He was of
+iron, it is true.  But consider that he had ridden this way at as desperate
+a pace already, to save me from the clutches of the Inquisition; and that,
+scarce rested, he was riding north again.  Consider this, and you will not
+marvel that his weariness conquered him at last.
+
+At the inn at Bologna where we dismounted, we found old Falcone awaiting
+us.  He had set out with his master to ride to Rome.  But being himself
+saddle-worn at the time, he had been unable to proceed farther than this,
+and here Galeotto in his fierce impatience had left him, pursuing his way
+alone.
+
+Here, then, we found the equerry again, consumed by anxiety.  He leapt
+forward to greet me, addressing me by the old title of Madonnino which I
+loved to hear from him, however much that title might otherwise arouse
+harsh and gloomy memories.
+
+Here at Bologna Galeotto announced that he would be forced to rest, and we
+slept for three hours--until night had closed in.  We were shaken out of
+our slumbers by the host as he had been ordered; but even then I lay
+entranced, my limbs refusing their office, until the memory of what was at
+issue acted like a spur upon me, and caused me to fling my weariness aside
+as if it had been a cloak.
+
+Galeotto, however, was in a deplorable case.  He could not move a limb.  He
+was exhausted--utterly and hopelessly exhausted with fatigue and want of
+sleep.  Falcone and I pulled him to his feet between us; but he collapsed
+again, unable to stand.
+
+"I am spent," he muttered.  "Give me twelve hours--twelve hours' sleep,
+Agostino, and I'll ride with you to the Devil."
+
+I groaned and cursed in one.  "Twelve hours!" I cried.  "And she...I can't
+wait, Galeotto.  I must ride on alone."
+
+He lay on his back and stared up at me, and his eyes had a glassy stare.
+Then he roused himself by an effort, and raised himself upon his elbow.
+
+"That is it, boy--ride on alone.  Take Falcone.  Listen, there are three
+score men of mine at Pagliano who will follow you to Hell at a word that
+Falcone shall speak to them from me.  About it, then, and save her.  But
+wait, boy!  Do no violence to Farnese, if you can help it."
+
+"But if I can't?" I asked.
+
+"If you can't--no matter.  But endeavour not to offer him any hurt!  Leave
+that to me--anon when all is ripe for it.  To-day it would be premature,
+and...and we ...we should be...crushed by the..."  His speech trailed off
+into incoherent mutterings; his eyelids dropped, and he was fast asleep
+again.
+
+Ten minutes later we were riding north again, and all that night we rode,
+along the endless Aemilian Way, pausing for no more than a draught of wine
+from time to time, and munching a loaf as we rode.  We crossed the Po, and
+kept steadily on, taking fresh horses when we could, until towards sunset a
+turn in the road brought Pagliano into our view--grey and lichened on the
+crest of its smooth emerald hill.
+
+The dusk was falling and lights began to gleam from some of the castle
+windows when we brought up in the shadow of the gateway.
+
+A man-at-arms lounged out of the guardhouse to inquire our business.
+
+"Is Madonna Bianca wed yet?" was the breathless greeting I gave him.
+
+He peered at me, and then at Falcone, and he swore in some surprise.
+
+"Well, returned my lord!  Madonna Bianca?  The nuptials were celebrated
+to-day.  The bride has gone."
+
+"Gone?" I roared.  "Gone whither, man?"
+
+"Why, to Piacenza--to my Lord Cosimo's palace there.  They set out some
+three hours since."
+
+"Where is your lord?" I asked him, flinging myself from the saddle.
+
+"Within doors, most noble."
+
+How I found him, or by what ways I went to do so, are things that are
+effaced completely from my memory.  But I know that I came upon him in the
+library.  He was sitting hunched in a great chair, his face ashen, his eyes
+fevered.  At sight of me--the cause, however innocent, of all this evil--
+his brows grew dark, and his eyes angry.  If he had reproaches for me, I
+gave him no time to utter them, but hurled him mine.
+
+"What have you done, sir?" I demanded.  "By what right did you do this
+thing?  By what right did you make a sacrifice of that sweet dove?  Did you
+conceive me so vile as to think that I should ever owe you gratitude--that
+I should ever do aught but abhor the deed, abhor all who had a hand in it,
+abhor the very life itself purchased for me at such a cost?"
+
+He cowered before my furious wrath; for I must have seemed terrific as I
+stood thundering there, my face wild, my eyes bloodshot, half mad from pain
+and rage and sleeplessness.
+
+"And do you know what you have done?" I went on.  "Do you know to what you
+have sold her?  Must I tell you?"
+
+And I told him, in a dozen brutal words that brought him to his feet, the
+lion in him roused at last, his eyes ablaze.
+
+"We must after them," I urged.  "We must wrest her from these beasts, and
+make a widow of her for the purpose.  Galeotto's lances are below and they
+will follow me.  You may bring what more you please.  Come, sir--to horse!"
+
+He sprang forward with no answer beyond a muttered prayer that we might
+come in time.
+
+"We must," I answered fiercely, and ran madly from the room, along the
+gallery and down the stairs, shouting and raging like a maniac, Cavalcanti
+following me.
+
+Within ten minutes, Galeotto's three score men and another score of those
+who garrisoned Pagliano for Cavalcanti were in the saddle and galloping
+hell-for-leather to Piacenza.  Ahead on fresh horses went Falcone and I,
+the Lord of Pagliano spurring beside me and pestering me with questions as
+to the source of my knowledge.
+
+Our great fear was lest we should find the gates of Piacenza closed on our
+arrival.  But we covered the ten miles in something under an hour, and the
+head of our little column was already through the Fodesta Gate when the
+first hour of night rang out from the Duomo, giving the signal for the
+closing of the gates.
+
+The officer in charge turned out to view so numerous a company, and
+challenged us to stand.  But I flung him the answer that we were the Black
+Bands of Ser Galeotto and that we rode by order of the Duke, with which
+perforce he had to be content; for we did not stay for more and were too
+numerous to be detained by such meagre force as he commanded.
+
+Up the dark street we swept--the same street down which I had last ridden
+on that night when Gambara had opened the gates of the prison for me--and
+so we came to the square and to Cosimo's palace.
+
+All was in darkness, and the great doors were closed.  A strange appearance
+this for a house to which a bride had so newly come.
+
+I dismounted as lightly as if I had not ridden lately more than just the
+ten miles from Pagliano.  Indeed, I had become unconscious of all fatigue,
+entirely oblivious of the fact that for three nights now I had not slept--
+save for the three hours at Bologna.
+
+I knocked briskly on the iron-studded gates.  We stood there waiting,
+Cavalcanti and Falcone afoot with me, the men on horseback still, a silent
+phalanx.
+
+I issued an order to Falcone.  "Ten of them to secure our egress, the rest
+to remain here and allow none to leave the house."
+
+The equerry stepped back to convey the command in his turn to the men, and
+the ten he summoned slipped instantly from their saddles and ranged
+themselves in the shadow of the wall.
+
+I knocked again, more imperatively, and at last the postern in the door was
+opened by an elderly serving-man.
+
+"What's this?" he asked, and thrust a lanthorn into my face.
+
+"We seek Messer Cosimo d'Anguissola," I answered.  He looked beyond me at
+the troop that lined the street, and his face became troubled.  "Why, what
+is amiss?" quoth he.
+
+"Fool, I shall tell that to your master.  Conduct me to him.  The matter
+presses."
+
+"Nay, then--but have you not heard?  My lord was wed to-day.  You would not
+have my lord disturbed at such a time?"  He seemed to leer.
+
+I put my foot into his stomach, and bore him backward, flinging him full
+length upon the ground.  He went over and rolled away into a corner, where
+he lay bellowing.
+
+"Silence him!" I bade the men who followed us in.  "Then, half of you
+remain here to guard the stairs; the rest attend us."
+
+The house was vast, and it remained silent, so that it did not seem that
+the clown's scream when he went over had been heard by any.
+
+Up the broad staircase we sped, guided by the light of the lanthorn, which
+Falcone had picked up--for the place was ominously in darkness.  Cavalcanti
+kept pace with me, panting with rage and anxiety.
+
+At the head of the stairs we came upon a man whom I recognized for one of
+the Duke's gentlemen-in-waiting.  He had been attracted, no doubt, by the
+sound of our approach; but at sight of us he turned to escape.  Cavalcanti
+reached forward in time to take him by the ankle, so that he came down
+heavily upon his face.
+
+In an instant I was sitting upon him, my dagger at his throat.
+
+"A sound," said I, "and you shall finish it in Hell!"  Eyes bulging with
+fear stared at me out of his white face.  He was an effeminate cur, of the
+sort that the Duke was wont to keep about him, and at once I saw that we
+should have no trouble with him.
+
+"Where is Cosimo?" I asked him shortly.  "Come, man, conduct us to the room
+that holds him if you would buy your dirty life."
+
+"He is not here," wailed the fellow.
+
+"You lie, you hound," said Cavalcanti, and turning to me--"Finish him,
+Agostino," he bade me.
+
+The man under me writhed, filled now by the terror that Cavalcanti had so
+cunningly known how to inspire in him.  "I swear to God that he is not
+here," he answered, and but that fear had robbed him of his voice, he would
+have screamed it.  "Gesu!  I swear it--it is true!"
+
+I looked up at Cavalcanti, baffled, and sick with sudden dismay.  I saw
+Cavalcanti's eye, which had grown dull, kindle anew.  He stooped over the
+prostrate man.
+
+"Is the bride here--is my daughter in this house?"
+
+The fellow whimpered and did not answer until my dagger's edge was at his
+throat again.  Then he suddenly screeched--"Yes!"
+
+In an instant I had dragged him to his feet again, his pretty clothes and
+daintily curled hair all crumpled, so that he looked the most pitiful thing
+in all the world.
+
+"Lead us to her chamber," I bade him.
+
+And he obeyed as men obey when the fear of death is upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
+
+
+An awful thought was in my mind as we went, evoked by the presence in such
+a place of one of the Duke's gentlemen; an awful question rose again and
+again to my lips, and yet I could not bring myself to utter it.
+
+So we went on in utter silence now, my hand upon his shoulder, clutching
+velvet doublet and flesh and bone beneath it, my dagger bare in my other
+hand.
+
+We crossed an antechamber whose heavy carpet muffled our footsteps, and we
+halted before tapestry curtains that masked a door, Here, curbing my fierce
+impatience, I paused.  I signed to the five attendant soldiers to come no
+farther; then I consigned the courtier who had guided us to the care of
+Falcone, and I restrained Cavalcanti, who was shaking from head to foot.
+
+I raised the heavy, muffling curtain, and standing there an instant by the
+door, I heard my Bianca's voice, and her words seemed to freeze the very
+marrow in my bones.
+
+"0, my lord," she was imploring in a choking voice, "0, my lord, have pity
+on me!"
+
+"Sweet," came the answer, "it is I who beseech pity at your hands.  Do you
+not see how I suffer?  Do you not see how fiercely love of you is torturing
+me--how I burn--that you can so cruelly deny me?"
+
+It was Farnese's voice.  Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the
+horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in a more
+horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or suspected.
+
+Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a hand
+upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand--the one that
+held the dagger--to my lips.
+
+Softly I tried the latch.  I was amazed to find the door yield.  And yet,
+where was the need to lock it?  What interruption could he have feared in a
+house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom, a
+house that was in the hands of his own people?
+
+Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the
+threshold--Cavalcanti and I--father and lover of that sweet maid who was
+the prey of this foul Duke.  We stood whilst a man might count a dozen,
+silent witnesses of that loathsome scene.
+
+The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved bed
+which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask--symbolizing the
+purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial altar.
+
+And to that dread sacrifice she had come--for my sake, as I was to learn--
+with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia.  For that sacrifice she had been
+prepared; but not for this horror that was thrust upon her now.
+
+She crouched upon a tall-backed praying-stool, her gown not more white than
+her face, her little hands convulsively clasped to make her prayer to that
+monster who stood over her, his mottled face all flushed, his eyes glowing
+as they considered her helplessness and terror with horrible, pitiless
+greed.
+
+Thus we observed them, ourselves unperceived for some moments, for the
+praying-stool on which she crouched was placed to the left, by the cowled
+fire-place, in which a fire of scented wood was crackling, the scene
+lighted by two golden candlebranches that stood upon the table near the
+curtained window.
+
+"0, my lord!" she cried in her despair, "of your mercy leave me, and no man
+shall ever know that you sought me thus.  I will be silent, my lord.  0, if
+you have no pity for me, have, at least, pity for yourself.  Do not cover
+yourself with the infamy of such a deed--a deed that will make you hateful
+to all men."
+
+"Gladly at such a price would I purchase your love, my Bianca!  What pains
+could daunt me?  Ah, you are mine, you are mine!"
+
+As the hawk that has been long poised closes its wings and drops at last
+upon its prey, so swooped he of a sudden down upon her, caught and dragged
+her up from the praying-stool to crush her to him.
+
+She screamed in that embrace, and sought to battle, swinging round so that
+her back was fully towards us, and Farnese, swinging round also in that
+struggle, faced us and beheld us.
+
+It was as if a mask had been abruptly plucked from his face, so sudden and
+stupendous was its alteration.  From flushed that it had been it grew livid
+and sickly; the unholy fires were spent in his eyes, and they grew dull and
+dead as a snake's; his jaw was loosened, and the sensual mouth looked
+unutterably foolish.
+
+For a moment I think I smiled upon him, and then Cavalcanti and I sprang
+forward, both together.  As we moved, his arms loosened their hold, and
+Bianca would have fallen but that I caught her.
+
+Her terror still upon her, she glanced upwards to see what fresh enemy was
+this, and then, at sight of my face, as my arms closed about her, and held
+her safe--
+
+"Agostino!" she cried, and closed her eyes to lie panting on my breast.
+
+The Duke, fleeing like a scared rat before the anger of Cavalcanti,
+scuttled down the room to a small door in the wall that held the fire-
+place.  He tore it open and sprang through, Cavalcanti following
+recklessly.
+
+There was a snarl and a cry, and the Lord of Pagliano staggered back,
+clutching one hand to his breast, and through his fingers came an ooze of
+blood.  Falcone ran to him.  But Cavalcanti swore like a man possessed.
+
+"It is nothing!" he snapped.  "By the horns of Satan! it is nothing.  A
+flesh wound, and like a fool I gave back before it.  After him!  In there!
+Kill!  Kill!"
+
+Out came Falcone's sword with a swish, and into the dark closet beyond went
+the equerry with a roar, Cavalcanti after him.
+
+It seemed that scarce had Farnese got within that closet than, flattening
+himself against the wall, he had struck at Cavalcanti as the latter
+followed, thus driving him back and gaining all the respite he needed.  For
+now they found the closet empty.  There was a door beyond, that opened to a
+corridor, and this was locked.  Not a doubt but that Farnese had gone that
+way.  They broke that door down.  I heard them at it what time I comforted
+Bianca, and soothed her, stroking her head, her cheek, and murmuring fondly
+to her until presently she was weeping softly.
+
+Thus Cavalcanti and Falcone found us presently when they returned.  Farnese
+had escaped with one of his gentlemen who had reached him in time to warn
+him that the street was full of soldiers and the palace itself invaded.
+Thereupon the Duke had dropped from one of the windows to the garden, his
+gentleman with him, and Cavalcanti had been no more than in time to see
+them disappearing through the garden gate.
+
+The Lord of Pagliano's buff-coat was covered with blood where Pier Luigi
+had stabbed him.  But he would give the matter no thought.  He was like a
+tiger now.   He dashed out into the antechamber, and I heard him bellowing
+orders.  Someone screamed horribly, and then followed a fierce din as if
+the very place were coming down about our ears.
+
+"What is it?" cried Bianca, quivering in my arms.  "Are...are they
+fighting?"
+
+"I do not think so, sweet," I answered her.  "We are in great strength.
+Have no fear."
+
+And then Falcone came in again.
+
+"The Lord of Pagliano is raging like a madman," he said.  "We had best be
+getting away or we shall have a brush with the Captain of Justice."
+
+Supporting Bianca, I led her from that chamber.
+
+"Where are we going?" she asked me.
+
+"Home to Pagliano," I answered her, and with that answer comforted that
+sorely tried maid.
+
+We found the antechamber in wreckage.  The great chandelier had been
+dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed and cut to ribbons, the
+arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced to
+fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and not a
+pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
+
+Thus, it seemed, childishly almost, had Cavalcanti vented his terrible
+rage, and I could well conceive what would have befallen any of the Duke's
+people upon whom in that hour he had chanced.  I did not know then that the
+poor pimp who had acted as our guide was hanging from the balcony dead, nor
+that his had been the horrible scream I had heard.
+
+On the stairs we met the raging Cavalcanti reascending, the stump of his
+shivered sword in his hand.
+
+"Hasten!" he cried.  "I was coming for you.  Let us begone!"
+
+Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a
+heap of straw.
+
+"What is this?" I asked.
+
+"You shall see," he roared.  "Get to horse."
+
+I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in
+front of me, my arm about her to support her.
+
+Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring torch.
+He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with it in a
+dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of flame.
+When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it was all a
+roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
+
+He stood back and laughed.  "If there are any more of his brothel-mates in
+the house, they can escape as he did.  They will be more fortunate than
+that one." And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the balcony,
+so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
+
+With my hand I screened Bianca's eyes.  "Do not look," I bade her.
+
+I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body.  And yet I reflected
+that it was just.  Any man who could have lent his aid to the foul crime
+that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and worse.
+
+Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to
+their windows in alarm.  Behind us the flames began to lick out from the
+ground floor of Cosimo's palace.
+
+We reached the Porta Fodesta, and peremptorily bade the guard to open for
+us.  He answered, as became his duty, with the very words that had been
+addressed to me at that place on a night two years ago:
+
+"None passes out to-night."
+
+In an instant a group of our men surrounded him, others made a living
+barrier before the guard-house, whilst two or three dismounted, drew the
+bolts, and dragged the great gates open.
+
+We rode on, crossing the river, and heading straight for Pagliano.
+
+For a while it was the sweetest ride that ever I rode, with my Bianca
+nestling against my breast, and responding faintly to all the foolishness
+that poured from me in that ambrosial hour.
+
+And then it seemed to me that we rode not by night but in the blazing light
+of day, along a dusty road, flanking an arid, sun-drenched stretch of the
+Campagna; and despite the aridity there must be water somewhere, for I
+heard it thundering as the Bagnanza had thundered after rain, and yet I
+knew that could not be the Bagnanza, for the Bagnanza was nowhere in the
+neighbourhood of Rome.
+
+Suddenly a great voice, and I knew it for the voice of Bianca, called me by
+name.
+
+"Agostino!"
+
+The vision was dissipated.  It was night again and we were riding for
+Pagliano through the fertile lands of ultra-Po; and there was Bianca
+clutching at my breast and uttering my name in accents of fear, whilst the
+company about me was halting.
+
+"What is it?" cried Cavalcanti.  Are you hurt?"  I understood.  I had been
+dozing in the saddle, and I must have rolled out of it but that Bianca
+awakened me with her cry.  I said so.
+
+"Body of Satan!" he swore.  "To doze at such a time!"
+
+"I have scarce been out of the saddle for three days and three nights--this
+is the fourth," I informed him.  I have had but three hours' sleep since we
+left Rome.  I am done," I admitted.  "You, sir, had best take your
+daughter.  She is no longer safe with me."
+
+It was so.  The fierce tension which had banished sleep from me whilst
+these things were doing, being now relaxed, left me exhausted as Galeotto
+had been at Bologna.  And Galeotto had urged me to halt and rest there!  He
+had begged for twelve hours!  I could now thank Heaven from a full heart
+for having given me the strength and resolution to ride on, for those
+twelve hours would have made all the difference between Heaven and Hell.
+
+Cavalcanti himself would not take her, confessing to some weakness.  For
+all that he insisted that his wound was not serious, yet he had lost much
+blood through having neglected in his rage to stanch it.  So it was to
+Falcone that fell the charge of that sweet burden.
+
+The last thing I remember was Cavalcanti's laugh, as, from the high ground
+we had mounted, he stopped to survey a ruddy glare above the city of
+Piacenza, where, in a vomit of sparks, Cosimo's fine palace was being
+consumed.
+
+Then we rode down into the valley again; and as we went the thud of hooves
+grew more and more distant, and I slept in the saddle as I rode, a man-at-
+arms on either side of me, so that I remember no more of the doings of that
+strenuous night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE PENANCE
+
+
+I awakened in the chamber that had been mine at Pagliano before my arrest
+by order of the Holy Office, and I was told upon awakening that I had slept
+a night and a day and that it was eventide once more.
+
+I rose, bathed, and put on a robe of furs, and then Galeotto came to visit
+me.
+
+He had arrived at dawn, and he too had slept for some ten hours since his
+arrival, yet despite of it his air was haggard, his glance overcast and
+heavy.
+
+I greeted him joyously, conscious that we had done well.  But he remained
+gloomy and unresponsive.
+
+"There is ill news," he said at last.  "Cavalcanti is in a raging fever,
+and he is sapped of strength, his body almost drained of blood.  I even
+fear that he is poisoned, that Farnese's dagger was laden with some venom."
+
+"0, surely...it will be well with him!"I faltered.  He shook his head
+sombrely, his brows furrowed.
+
+"He must have been stark mad last night.  To have raged as he did with such
+a wound upon him, and to have ridden ten miles afterwards!  0, it was
+midsummer frenzy that sustained him.  Here in the courtyard he reeled
+unconscious from the saddle; they found him drenched with blood from head
+to foot; and he has been unconscious ever since.  I am afraid..."  He
+shrugged despondently.
+
+"Do you mean that...that he may die?" I asked scarce above a whisper.
+
+"It will be a miracle if he does not.  And that is one more crime to the
+score of Pier Luigi."  He said it in a tone of indescribable passion,
+shaking his clenched fist at the ceiling.
+
+The miracle did not come to pass.  Two days later, in the presence of
+Galeotto, Bianca, Fra Gervasio, who had been summoned from his Piacenza
+convent to shrive the unfortunate baron, and myself, Ettore Cavalcanti sank
+quietly to rest.
+
+Whether he was dealt an envenomed wound, as Galeotto swore, or whether he
+died as a result of the awful draining of his veins, I do not know.
+
+At the end he had a moment of lucidity.
+
+"You will guard my Bianca, Agostino," he said to me, and I swore it
+fervently, as he bade me, whilst upon her knees beyond the bed, clasping
+one of his hands that had grown white as marble, Bianca was sobbing
+brokenheartedly.
+
+Then the dying man turned his head to Galeotto.  "You will see justice done
+upon that monster ere you die," he said.  "It is God's holy work."
+
+And then his mind became clouded again by the mists of approaching
+dissolution, and he sank into a sleep, from which he never awakened.
+
+We buried him on the morrow in the Chapel of Pagliano, and on the next day
+Galeotto drew up a memorial wherein he set forth all the circumstances of
+the affair in which that gallant gentleman had met his end.  It was a
+terrible indictment of Pier Luigi Farnese.  Of this memorial he prepared
+two copies, and to these--as witnesses of all the facts therein related--
+Bianca, Falcone, and I appended our signatures, and Fra Gervasio added his
+own.  One of these copies Galeotto dispatched to the Pope, the other to
+Ferrante Gonzaga in Milan, with a request that it should be submitted to
+the Emperor.
+
+When the memorial was signed, he rose, and taking Bianca's hand in his own,
+he swore by his every hope of salvation that ere another year was sped her
+father should be avenged together with all the other of Pier Luigi's
+victims.
+
+That same day he set out again upon his conspirator's work, whose aim was
+not only the life of Pier Luigi, but the entire shattering of the
+Pontifical sway in Parma and Piacenza.  Some days later he sent me another
+score of lances--for he kept his forces scattered about the country whilst
+gradually he increased their numbers.
+
+Thereafter we waited for events at Pagliano, the drawbridge raised, and
+none entering save after due challenge.
+
+We expected an attack which never came; for Pier Luigi did not dare to lead
+an army against an Imperial fief upon such hopeless grounds as were his
+own.  Possibly, too, Galeotto's memorial may have caused the Pope to impose
+restraint upon his dissolute son.
+
+Cosimo d'Anguissola, however, had the effrontery to send a messenger a week
+later to Pagliano, to demand the surrender of his wife, saying that she was
+his by God's law and man's, and threatening to enforce his rights by an
+appeal to the Vatican.
+
+That we sent the messenger empty-handed away, it is scarce necessary to
+chronicle.  I was in command at Pagliano, holding it in Bianca's name, as
+Bianca's lieutenant and castellan, and I made oath that I would never lower
+the bridge to admit an enemy.
+
+But Cosimo's message aroused in us a memory that had lain dormant these
+days.  She was no longer for my wooing.  She was the wife of another.
+
+It came to us almost as a flash of lightning in the night; and it startled
+us by all that it revealed.
+
+"The fault of it is all mine," said she, as we sat that evening in the
+gold-and-purple dining-room where we had supped.
+
+It was with those words that she broke the silence that had endured
+throughout the repast, until the departure of the pages and the seneschal
+who had ministered to us precisely as in the days when Cavalcanti had been
+alive.
+
+"Ah, not that, sweet!" I implored her, reaching a hand to her across the
+table.
+
+"But it is true, my dear," she answered, covering my hand with her own.
+"If I had shown you more mercy when so contritely you confessed your sin,
+mercy would have been shown to me.  I should have known from the sign I had
+that we were destined for each other; that nothing that you had done could
+alter that.  I did know it, and yet..."  She halted there, her lip
+tremulous.
+
+"And yet you did the only thing that you could do when your sweet purity
+was outraged by the knowledge of what I really had been."
+
+"But you were so no more," she said with a something of pleading in her
+voice.
+
+"It was you--the blessed sight of you that cleansed me," I cried.  "When
+love for you awoke in me, I knew love for the first time, for that other
+thing which I deemed love had none of love's holiness.  Your image drove
+out all the sin from my soul.  The peace which half a year of penance, of
+fasting and flagellation could not bring me, was brought me by my love for
+you when it awoke.  It was as a purifying fire that turned to ashes all the
+evil of desires that my heart had held."
+
+Her hand pressed mine.  She was weeping softly.
+
+"I was an outcast," I continued.  "I was a mariner without compass, far
+from the sight of land, striving to find my way by the light of sentiments
+implanted in me from early youth.  I sought salvation desperately-�sought
+it in a hermitage, as I would have sought it in a cloister but that I had
+come to regard myself as unworthy of the cloistered life.  I found it at
+last, in you, in the blessed contemplation of you.  It was you who taught
+me the lesson that the world is God's world and that God is in the world as
+much as in the cloister.  Such was the burden of your message that night
+when you appeared to me on Monte Orsaro."
+
+"0, Agostino!" she cried, "and all this being so can you refrain from
+blaming me for what has come to pass?  If I had but had faith in you--the
+faith in the sign which we both received--I should have known all this;
+known that if you had sinned you had been tempted and that you had atoned."
+
+"I think the atonement lies here and now, in this," I answered very
+gravely.  "She was the wife of another who dragged me down.  You are the
+wife of another who have lifted me up.  She through sin was attainable.
+That you can never, never be, else should I have done with life in earnest.
+But do not blame yourself, sweet saint.  You did as your pure spirit bade
+you; soon all would have been well but that already Messer Pier Luigi had
+seen you."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"You know, dear that if I submitted to wed your cousin, it was to save
+you--that such was the price imposed?"
+
+"Dear saint!" I cried.
+
+"I but mention it that upon such a score you may have no doubt of my
+motives."
+
+"How could I doubt?" I protested.
+
+I rose, and moved down the room towards the window, behind which the night
+gleamed deepest blue.  I looked out upon the gardens from which the black
+shadows of stark poplars thrust upward against the sky, and I thought out
+this thing.  Then I turned to her, having as I imagined found the only and
+rather obvious solution.
+
+"There is but one thing to do, Bianca."
+
+"And that?" her eyes were very anxious, and looked perhaps even more so in
+consequence of the pallor of her face and the lines of pain that had come
+into it in these weeks of such sore trial.
+
+"I must remove the barrier that stands between us.  I must seek out Cosimo
+and kill him."
+
+I said it without anger, without heat of any sort: a calm, cold statement
+of a step that it was necessary to take.  It was a just measure, the only
+measure that could mend an unjust situation.  And so, I think, she too
+viewed it.  For she did not start, or cry out in horror, or manifest the
+slightest surprise at my proposal.  But she shook her head, and smiled very
+wistfully.
+
+"What a folly would not that be!" she said.  "How would it amend what is?
+You would be taken, and justice would be done upon you summarily.  Would
+that make it any easier or any better for me?  I should be alone in the
+world and entirely undefended."
+
+"Ah, but you go too fast," I cried.  "By justice I could not suffer, I need
+but to state the case, the motive of my quarrel, the iniquitous wrong that
+was attempted against you, the odious traffic of this marriage, and all men
+would applaud my act.  None would dare do me a hurt."
+
+"You are too generous in your faith in man," she said.  "Who would believe
+your claims?"
+
+"The courts," I said.
+
+"The courts of a State in which Pier Luigi governs?"
+
+"But I have witnesses of the facts."
+
+"Those witnesses would never be allowed to testify.  Your protests would be
+smothered.  And how would your case really look?" she cried.  "The world
+would conceive that the lover of Bianca de' Cavalcanti had killed her
+husband that he might take her for his own.  What could you hope for,
+against such a charge as that?  Men might even remember that other affair
+of Fifanti's and even the populace, which may be said to have saved you
+erstwhile, might veer round and change from the opinion which it has ever
+held.  They would say that one who has done such a thing once may do it
+twice; that..."
+
+"0, for pity's sake, stop!  Have mercy!" I cried, flinging out my arms
+towards her.  And mercifully she ceased, perceiving that she had said
+enough.
+
+I turned to the window again, and pressed my brow against the cool glass.
+She was right.  That acute mind of hers had pierced straight to the very
+core of this matter.  To do the thing that had been in my mind would be not
+only to destroy myself, but to defile her; for upon her would recoil a
+portion of the odium that must be flung at me.  And--as she said--what then
+must be her position?  They would even have a case upon which to drag her
+from these walls of Pagliano.  She would be a victim of the civil courts;
+she might, at Pier Luigi's instigation, be proceeded against as my
+accomplice in what would be accounted a dastardly murder for the basest of
+motives.
+
+I turned to her again.
+
+"You are right," I said.  "I see that you are right.  Just as I was right
+when I said that my atonement lies here and now.  The penance for which I
+have cried out so long is imposed at last.  It is as just as it is cruelly
+apt."
+
+I came slowly back to the table, and stood facing her across it.  She
+looking up at me with very piteous eyes.
+
+"Bianca, I must go hence," I said.  "That, too, is clear."
+
+Her lips parted; her eyes dilated; her face, if anything, grew paler.
+
+"0, no, no!" she cried piteously.
+
+"It must be," I said.  "How can I remain?  Cosimo may appeal for justice
+against me, claiming that I hold his wife in duress--and justice will be
+done."
+
+"But can you not resist?  Pagliano is strong and well�manned.  The Black
+Bands are very faithful men, and they will stand by you to the end."
+
+"And the world?" I cried.  "What will the world say of you?  It is you
+yourself have made me see it.  Shall your name be dragged in the foul mire
+of scandal?  The wife of Cosimo d'Anguissola a runagate with her husband's
+cousin?  Shall the world say that?"
+
+She moaned, and covered her face with her hands.  Then she controlled
+herself again, and looked at me almost fiercely.
+
+"Do you care so much for what men say?"
+
+"I am thinking of you."
+
+"Then think of me to better purpose, my Agostino.  Consider that we are
+confronted by two evils, and that the choice of the lesser is forced upon
+us.  If you go, I am all unprotected, and...and...the harm is done
+already."
+
+Long I looked at her with such a yearning to take her in my arms and
+comfort her!  And I had the knowledge that if I remained, daily must I
+experience this yearning which must daily grow crueller and more fierce
+from the very restraint I must impose upon it.  And then that rearing of
+mine, all drenched in sanctity misunderstood, came to my help, and made me
+see in this an added burden to my penance, a burden which I must accept if
+I would win to ultimate grace.
+
+And so I consented to remain, and I parted from her with no more than a
+kiss bestowed upon her finger-tips, and went to pray for patience and
+strength to bear my heavy cross and so win to my ultimate reward, be it in
+this world or the next.
+
+In the morning came news by a messenger from Galeotto--news of one more
+foul crime that the Duke had committed on that awful night when we had
+rescued Bianca from his evil claws.  The unfortunate Giuliana had been
+found dead in her bed upon the following morning, and the popular voice
+said that the Duke had strangled her.
+
+Of that rumour I subsequently had confirmation.  It would appear that
+maddened with rage at the loss of his prey, that ravening wolf had looked
+about to discover who might have betrayed his purpose and procured that
+intervention.  He bethought him of Giuliana.  Had not Cosimo seen her in
+intimate talk with me on the morning of my arrest, and would he not have
+reported it to his master?
+
+So to the handsome mansion in which he housed her, and to which at all
+hours he had access, the Duke went instantly.  He must have taxed her with
+it; and knowing her nature, I can imagine that she not only admitted that
+his thwarting was due to her, but admitted it mockingly, exultingly,
+jeering as only a jealous woman can jeer, until in his rage he seized her
+by the throat.
+
+How bitterly must she not have repented that she had not kept a better
+guard upon her tongue, during those moments of her agony, brief in
+themselves, yet horribly long to her, until her poor wanton spirit went
+forth from the weak clay that she had loved too well.
+
+When I heard of the end of that unfortunate, all my bitterness against her
+went out of me, and in my heart I set myself to find excuses for her.
+Witty and cultured in much; in much else she had been as stupid as the dumb
+beast.  She was irreligious as were many because what she saw of religion
+did not inspire respect in her, and whilst one of her lovers had been a
+prince of the Church another had been the son of the Pope.  She was by
+nature sensuous, and her sensuousness stifled in her all perception of
+right or wrong.
+
+I like to think that her death was brought about as the result of a good
+deed--so easily might it have been the consequence of an evil one.  And I
+trust that that deed--good in itself, whatever the sources from which it
+may have sprung--may have counted in her favour and weighed in the balance
+against the sins that were largely of her nature.
+
+I bethought me of Fra Gervasio's words to me: "Who that knows all that goes
+to the making of a sin shall ever dare to blame a sinner?"  He had applied
+those words to my own case where Giuliana was concerned.  But do they not
+apply equally to Giuliana?  Do they not apply to every sinner, when all is
+said?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BLOOD
+
+
+The words that passed between Bianca and me that evening in the dining-room
+express all that can be said of our attitude to each other during the
+months that followed.  Daily we met, and the things which our lips no
+longer dared to utter, our eyes expressed.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks, and these accumulated into months.  The
+autumn faded from gold to grey, and the winter came and laid the earth to
+sleep, and then followed spring to awaken it once more.
+
+None troubled us at Pagliano, and we began with some justice to consider
+ourselves secure.  Galeotto's memorial, not a doubt, had stirred up
+matters; and Pier Luigi would be under orders from his father not to add
+one more scandal to the many of his life by venturing to disturb Madonna
+Bianca in her stronghold at Pagliano.
+
+From time to time we were visited by Galeotto.  It was well for him that
+fatigue had overwhelmed him that day at Bologna, and so hindered him from
+taking a hand with us in the doings of that hideous night, else he might no
+longer have freedom to roam the State unchallenged as he did.
+
+He told us of the new citadel the Duke was building in Piacenza, and how
+for the purpose he was pulling down houses relentlessly to obtain material
+and to clear himself a space, and how, further, he was widening and
+strengthening the walls of the city.
+
+"But I doubt," he said one morning in that spring, "if he will live to see
+the work completed.  For we are resolved at last.  There is no need for an
+armed rising.  Five score of my lances will be all that is necessary.  We
+are planning a surprise, and Ferrante Gonzaga is to be at hand to support
+us with Imperial troops and to receive the State as the Emperor's
+vicegerent when the hour strikes.  It will strike soon," he added, "and
+this, too, shall be paid for with the rest."  And he touched the black
+mourning gown that Bianca wore.
+
+He rode away again that day, and he went north for a last interview with
+the Emperor's Lieutenant, but promising to return before the blow was
+struck to give me the opportunity to bear my share in it.
+
+Spring turned to summer, and we waited, wandering in the gardens together;
+reading together, playing at bowls or tennis, though the latter game was
+not considered one for women, and sometimes exercising the men-at-arms in
+the great inner bailey where they lodged.  Twice we rode out ahawking,
+accompanied by a strong escort, and returned without mishap, though I would
+not consent to a third excursion, lest a rumour having gone abroad, our
+enemies should lie in wait to trap us.  I grew strangely fearful of losing
+her who did not and who never might belong to me.
+
+And all this time my penance, as I regarded it, grew daily heavier to bear.
+Long since I had ceased so much as to kiss her finger-tips.  But to kiss
+the very air she breathed was fraught with danger to my peace of mind.  And
+then one evening, as we paced the garden together, I had a moment's
+madness, a moment in which my yearnings would no longer be repressed.
+Without warning I swung about, caught her in my arms, and crushed her to
+me.
+
+I saw the sudden flicker of her eyelids, the one swift upward glance of her
+blue eyes, and I beheld in them a yearning akin to my own, but also a
+something of fear that gave me pause.
+
+I put her from me.  I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown.
+
+"Forgive me, sweet." I besought her very humbly.
+
+"My poor Agostino," was all she answered me, what time her fingers
+fluttered gently over my sable hair.
+
+Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
+save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
+
+At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary of
+her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a Thursday--came
+Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and that night he was
+gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve months past.
+
+When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
+transpired.
+
+"It is the hour," he said very pregnantly.  "His sands are swiftly running
+out.  To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza.  Falcone shall
+remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made upon
+Pagliano, which is not likely."
+
+And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
+occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of
+the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving him
+the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to answer
+for his sins.
+
+Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties, for
+which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no more.
+Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush the barons,
+Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no longer needed.
+Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and their very houses
+were being pulled down to supply material for the new citadel, the Duke
+recking little who might thus be left without a roof over his head.
+
+"He has gone mad," said Galeotto, and laughed.  "Pier Luigi could not more
+effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends.  The nobles he
+alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed against him and
+weary of his rapine.  It is so bad with him that of late he has remained
+shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as to avoid the sight
+of the starving faces of the poor and the general ruin that he is making of
+that fair city.  He has given out that he is ill.  A little blood-letting
+will cure all his ills for ever."
+
+Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them their
+orders.  They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as countryfolk,
+but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they were severally
+to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the morning of
+Saturday at the time and place he indicated.  They went, and that afternoon
+we followed.
+
+"You will come back to me, Agostino?" Bianca said to me at parting.
+
+"I will come back," I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very heavy.
+
+But as we rode the prospect of the thing to do warmed me a little, and I
+shook off my melancholy.  Optimism coloured the world for me all of the
+rosy hue of promise.
+
+We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads to
+the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a dozen
+assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini of
+Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of Pier
+Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the house of
+Confalonieri.
+
+We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which reflected
+as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was charged, when
+suddenly Galeotto span a coin upon the middle of it.  It fell flat
+presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which the
+abbreviation PLAC was a part.
+
+Galeotto set his finger to it.  "A year ago I warned him," said he, "that
+his fate was written there in that shortened word.  To-morrow I shall read
+the riddle for him."
+
+I did not understand the allusion and said so.
+
+"Why," he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also been
+knit, "first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his doom; and
+then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this
+undertaking--Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri."
+
+"You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in this
+affair," said I.
+
+He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
+
+And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere, for
+it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways, according
+to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the writing.
+
+Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
+
+Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were to
+assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at the Duke's
+side.  He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an inspection of the
+new fortress that was building.  It appeared that once more there was talk
+between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking service under him, and
+Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward his plans.  He was, I
+think, the most self-contained and patient man that it would have been
+possible to find for such an undertaking.
+
+In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback attended
+the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming corselets
+and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went afoot to hedge
+his excellency.
+
+The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed their
+caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air was sullen
+and in the main they were silent, though here and there some knave, with
+the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs, raised a feeble
+shout of "Duca!"
+
+The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
+crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome in
+itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for the
+fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were great
+brown stains of suffering.
+
+I flattened myself against a wall in the shadow of a doorway lest he should
+see me, for my height made me an easy mark in that crowd.  But he looked
+neither to right nor to left as he rode.  Indeed, it was said that he could
+no longer bear to meet the glances of the people he had so grossly abused
+and outraged with deeds that are elsewhere abundantly related, and with
+which I need not turn your stomachs here.
+
+When they had gone by, I followed slowly in their wake towards the castle.
+As I turned out of the fine road that Gambara had built, I was joined by
+the brothers Pallavicini, a pair of resolute, grizzled gentlemen, the elder
+of whom, as you will remember, was slightly lame.  With an odd sense of
+fitness they had dressed themselves in black.  They were accompanied by
+half a dozen of Galeotto's men, but these bore no device by which they
+could be identified.  We exchanged greetings, and stepped out together
+across the open space of the Piazza della Citadella towards the fortress.
+
+We crossed the drawbridge, and entered unchallenged by the guard.  People
+were wont to come and go, and to approach the Duke it was necessary to pass
+the guard in the ante-chamber above, whose business it was to question all
+comers.
+
+Moreover the only guard set consisted of a couple of Swiss who lounged in
+the gateway, the garrison being all at dinner, a circumstance upon which
+Galeotto had calculated in appointing noon as the hour for the striking of
+the blow.
+
+We crossed the quadrangle, and passing under a second archway came into the
+inner bailey as we had been bidden.  Here we were met by Confalonieri, who
+also had half a dozen men with him.  He greeted us, and issued his orders
+sharply.
+
+"You, Ser Agostino, are to come with us, whilst you others are to remain
+here until Messer Landi arrives with the remainder of our forces.  He
+should have a score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard when
+they enter.  The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged as the
+signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge and
+overpower the Swiss who should still be at table.  Landi has his orders and
+knows how to act."
+
+The Pallavicini briefly spoke their assents, and Confalonieri, taking me by
+the arm, led me quickly above-stairs, his half-dozen men following close
+upon our heels.  Upon none was there any sign of armour.  But every man
+wore a shirt of mail under his doublet or jerkin.
+
+We entered the ante-chamber--a fine, lofty apartment, richly hung and
+richly furnished.  It was empty of courtiers, for all were gone to dine
+with the captain of the guard, who had been married upon that very morning
+and was giving a banquet in honour of the event, as Galeotto had informed
+himself when he appointed the day.
+
+Over by a window sat four of the Swiss--the entire guard--about a table
+playing at dice, their lances deposited in an angle of the wall.
+
+Watching their game--for which he had lingered after accompanying the Duke
+thus far--stood the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Galeotto.  He turned
+as we entered, and gave us an indifferent glance as if we were of no
+interest to him, then returned his attention to the dicers.
+
+One or two of the Swiss looked up at us casually.  The dice rattled
+merrily, and there came from the players little splutters of laughter and
+deep guttural, German oaths.
+
+At the room's far end, by the curtains that masked the door of the chamber
+where Farnese sat at dinner, stood an usher in black velvet, staff in hand,
+who took no more interest in us than did the Swiss.
+
+We sauntered over to the dicers' table, and in placing ourselves the better
+to watch their game, we so contrived that we entirely hemmed them into the
+embrasure, whilst Confalonieri himself stood with his back to the pikes, an
+effective barrier between the men and their weapons.
+
+We remained thus for some moments whilst the game went on, and we laughed
+with the winners and swore with the losers, as if our hearts were entirely
+in the dicing and we had not another thought in the world.
+
+Suddenly a pistol-shot crackled below, and startled the Swiss, who looked
+at one another.  One burly fellow whom they named Hubli held the dice-box
+poised for a throw that was never made.
+
+Across the courtyard below men were running with drawn swords, shouting as
+they ran, and hurled themselves through the doorway leading to the quarters
+where the Swiss were at table.  This the guards saw through the open
+window, and they stared, muttering German oaths to express their deep
+bewilderment.
+
+And then there came a creak of winches and a grinding of chains to inform
+us that the bridge was being taken up.  At last those four lanzknechte
+looked at us.
+
+"Beim blute Gottes!" swore Hubli.  "Was giebt es?"
+
+Our set faces, showing no faintest trace of surprise, quickened their
+alarm, and this became flavoured by suspicion when they perceived at last
+how closely we pressed about them.
+
+"Continue your game," said Confalonieri quietly, "it will be best for you."
+
+The great blonde fellow Hubli flung down the dice-box and heaved himself up
+truculently to face the speaker who stood between him and the lances.
+Instantly Confalonieri stabbed him, and he sank back into his chair with a
+cry, intensest surprise in his blue eyes, so sudden and unlooked-for had
+the action been.
+
+Galeotto had already left the group about the table, and with a blow of his
+great hand he felled the usher who sought to bar his passage to the Duke's
+chamber.  He tore down the curtains, and he was wrapping and entangling the
+fellow in the folds of them when I came to his aid followed by
+Confalonieri, whose six men remained to hold the three sound and the one
+wounded Swiss in check.
+
+And now from below there rose such a din of steel on steel, of shouts and
+screams and curses, that it behoved us to make haste.
+
+Bidding us follow him, Galeotto flung open the door.  At table sat Farnese
+with two of his gentlemen, one of whom was the Marquis Sforza-Fogliani, the
+other a doctor of canon law named Copallati.
+
+Alarm was already written on their faces.  At sight of Galeotto--"Ah!  You
+are still here!" cried Farnese.  "What is taking place below?  Have the
+Swiss fallen to fighting among themselves?"
+
+Galeotto returned no answer, but advanced slowly into the room; and now
+Farnese's eyes went past him and fastened upon me, and I saw them suddenly
+dilate; beyond me they went and met the cold glance of Confalonieri, that
+other gentleman he had so grievously wronged and whom he had stripped of
+the last rag of his possessions and his rights.  The sun coming through the
+window caught the steel that Confalonieri still carried in his hands; its
+glint drew the eyes of the Duke, and he must have seen that the baron's
+sleeve was bloody.
+
+He rose, leaning heavily upon the table.
+
+"What does this mean?" he demanded in a quavering voice, and his face had
+turned grey with apprehension.
+
+"It means," Galeotto answered him, firmly and coldly, "that your rule in
+Piacenza is at an end, that the Pontifical sway is broken in these States,
+and that beyond the Po Ferrante Gonzaga waits with an army to take
+possession here in the Emperor's name.  Finally, my Lord Duke, it means
+that the Devil's patience is to be rewarded, and that he is at last to have
+you who have so faithfully served him upon earth."
+
+Farnese made a gurgling sound and put a jewelled hand to his throat as if
+he choked.  He was all in green velvet, and every button of his doublet was
+a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its incongruity seemed to
+heighten the tragedy of the moment.
+
+Of his gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed seat,
+clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white as marble.  In
+like case were the two attendant servants, who hung motionless by the
+buffet.  But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for all his effeminate
+appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand to his weapons.
+
+Instantly Confalonieri's sword flashed from its sheath.  He had passed his
+dagger into his left hand.
+
+"On your life, my Lord Marquis, do not meddle here," he warned him in a
+voice that was like a trumpet-call.
+
+And before that ferocious aspect and those naked weapons Sforza-Fogliani
+stood checked and intimidated.
+
+I too had drawn my poniard, determined that Farnese should fall to my steel
+in settlement of the score that lay between us.  He saw the act, and if
+possible his fears were increased, for he knew that the wrongs he had done
+me were personal matters between us for which it was not likely I should
+prove forgiving.
+
+"Mercy!" he gasped, and held out supplicating hands to Galeotto.
+
+"Mercy?" I echoed, and laughed fiercely.  "What mercy would you have shown
+me against whom you set the Holy Office, but that you could sell my life at
+a price that was merciless?  What mercy would you have shown to the
+daughter of Cavalcanti when she lay in your foul power?  What mercy did you
+show her father who died by your hand?  What mercy did you show the
+unfortunate Giuliana whom you strangled in her bed?  What mercy did you
+ever show to any that you dare ask now for mercy?"
+
+He looked at me with dazed eyes, and from me to Galeotto.  He shuddered and
+turned a greenish hue.  His knees were loosened by terror, and he sank back
+into the chair from which he had risen.
+
+"At least...at least," he gasped, "let me have a priest to shrive me.  Do
+not...do not let me die with all my sins upon me!"
+
+In that moment there came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly moving
+feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries.  The sound heartened him.
+He conceived that someone came to his assistance.  He raised his voice in a
+desperate screech:
+
+"To me!  To me!  Help!"
+
+As he shouted I sprang towards him, to find my passage suddenly barred by
+Galeotto's arm.  He shot it out, and my breast came against it as against a
+rod of iron.  It threw me out of balance, and ere I had recovered it had
+thrust me back again.
+
+"Back there!" said Galeotto's brazen voice.  "This affair is mine.  Mine
+are the older wrongs and the greater."
+
+With that he stepped behind the Duke's chair, and Farnese in a fresh spurt
+of panic came to his feet.  Galeotto locked an arm about his neck and
+pulled his head back.  Into his ear he muttered words that I could not
+overhear, but it was matter that stilled Farnese's last struggle.  Only the
+Duke's eyes moved, rolling in his head as he sought to look upon the face
+of the man who spoke to him.  And in that moment Galeotto wrenched his
+victim's head still farther back, laying entirely bare the long brown
+throat, across which he swiftly drew his dagger.
+
+Copallati screamed and covered his face with his hands; Sforza-Fogliani,
+white to the lips, looked on like a man entranced.
+
+There was a screech from Farnese that ended in a gurgle, and suddenly the
+blood spurted from his neck as from a fountain.  Galeotto let him go.  He
+dropped to his chair and fell forward against the table, drenching it in
+blood.  Thence he went over sideways and toppled to the floor, where he lay
+twitching, a huddle of arms and legs, the head lolling sideways, the eyes
+vitreous, and blood, blood, blood all about him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE OVERTHROW
+
+
+The sight turned me almost physically sick.
+
+I faced about, and sprang from the room out into the ante-chamber, where a
+battle was in progress.  Some three or four of the Duke's gentlemen and a
+couple of Swiss had come to attempt a rescue.  They had compelled
+Galeotto's six men to draw and defend themselves, the odds being suddenly
+all against them.  Into that medley I went with drawn sword, hacking and
+cutting madly, giving knocks and taking them, glad of the excitement of it;
+glad of anything that would shut out from my mind the horror of the scene I
+had witnessed.
+
+Presently Confalonieri came out to take a hand, leaving Galeotto on guard
+within, and in a few minutes we had made an end of that resistance--the
+last splutter of resistance within those walls.
+
+Beyond some cuts and scratches that some of us had taken, not a man of ours
+was missing, whilst of the Duke's followers not a single one remained alive
+in that ante�chamber.  The place was a shambles.  Hangings that had been
+clutched had been torn from the walls; a great mirror was cracked from top
+to bottom; tables were overset and wrecked; chairs were splintered; and
+hardly a pane of glass remained in any of the windows.  And everywhere
+there was blood, everywhere dead men.
+
+Up the stairs came trooping now our assembled forces led by Landi and the
+Pallavicini.  Below all was quiet.  The Swiss garrison taken by surprise at
+table, as was planned, had been disarmed and all were safe and impotent
+under lock and bolt.  The guards at the gate had been cut down, and we were
+entirely masters of the place.
+
+Sforza-Fogliani, Copallati, and the two servants were fetched from the
+Duke's chamber and taken away to be locked up in another room until the
+business should be ended.  For after all, it was but begun.
+
+In the town the alarm-bell was ringing from the tower of the Communal
+Palace, and at the sound I saw Galeotto's eyes kindling.  He took command,
+none disputing it him, and under his orders men went briskly to turn the
+cannon of the fortress upon the square, that an attack might be repulsed if
+it were attempted.  And three salvoes were fired, to notify Ferrante
+Gonzaga where he waited that the castle was in the hands of the
+conspirators and Pier Luigi slain.
+
+Meanwhile we had returned with Galeotto to the room where the Duke had
+died, and where his body still lay, huddled as it had fallen.  The windows
+of this chamber were set in the outer wall of the fortress, immediately
+above the gates and commanding a view of the square.  We were six--
+Confalonieri, Landi, the two Pallavicini, Galeotto, and myself, besides a
+slight fellow named Malvicini, who had been an officer of light-horse in
+the Duke's service, but who had taken a hand in betraying him.
+
+In the square there was by now a seething, excited mob through which a
+little army of perhaps a thousand men of the town militia with their
+captain, da Terni, riding at their head, was forcing its way.  And they
+were shouting "Duca!" and crying out that the castle had been seized by
+Spaniards--by which they meant the Emperor's troops.
+
+Galeotto dragged a chair to the window, and standing upon it, showed
+himself to the people.
+
+"Disperse!" he shouted to them.  "To your homes!  The Duke is dead!"
+
+But his voice could not surmount that raging din, above which continued to
+ring the cry of "Duca!  Duca!"
+
+"Let me show them their Duca," said a voice.  It was Malvicini's.
+
+He had torn down a curtain-rope, and had attached an end of it to one of
+the dead man's legs.  Thus he dragged the body forward towards the window.
+The other end of the rope he now knotted very firmly to a mullion.  Then he
+took the body up in his arms, whilst Galeotto stood aside to make way for
+him, and staggering under his ghastly burden, Malvicini reached the window,
+and heaved it over the sill.
+
+It fell the length of the rope and there was arrested with a jerk to hang
+head downwards, spread-eagle against the brown wall; and the diamond
+buttons in his green velvet doublet sparkled merrily in the sunshine.
+
+At that sight a great silence swept across the multitude, and availing
+himself of this, Galeotto again addressed those Piacentini.
+
+"To your homes," he cried to them, "and arm yourselves to defend the State
+from your enemies if the need should arise.  There hangs the Duke--dead.
+He has been slain to liberate our country from unjust oppression."
+
+Still, it seemed, they did not hear him; for though to us they appeared to
+be almost silent, yet there was a rustle and stir amongst them, which must
+have deafened each to what was being announced.
+
+They renewed their cries of "Duca!" of "Spaniards!" and "To arms!"
+
+"A curse on your 'Spaniards!'" cried Malvicini.  "Here!  Take your Duke.
+Look at him, and understand."  And he slashed the rope across, so that the
+body plunged down into the castle ditch.
+
+A few of the foremost of the crowd ran forward and scrambled down into the
+ditch to view the body, and from them the rumour of the truth ran like a
+ripple over water through that mob, so that in the twinkling of an eye
+there was no man in that vast concourse--and all Piacenza seemed by now to
+be packed into the square--but knew that Pier Luigi Farnese was dead.
+
+A sudden hush fell.  There were no more cries of "Duca!"  They stood
+silent, and not a doubt but that in the breasts of the majority surged a
+great relief.  Even the militia ceased to advance.  If the Duke was dead
+there was nothing left to do.
+
+Again Galeotto spoke to them, and this time his words were caught by those
+in the ditch immediately below us, and from them they were passed on, and
+suddenly a great cry went up--a shout of relief, a paean of joy.  If
+Farnese was dead, and well dead, they could, at last, express the thing
+that was in their hearts.
+
+And now at the far end of the square a glint of armour appeared; a troop of
+horse emerged, and began slowly to press forward through the crowd, driving
+it back on either side, but very gently.  They came three abreast, and
+there were six score of them, and from their lance-heads fluttered
+bannerols showing a sable bar on an argent field.  They were Galeotto's
+free company, headed by one of his lieutenants.  Beyond the Po they too had
+been awaiting the salvo of artillery that should be their signal to
+advance.
+
+When their identity was understood, and when the crowd had perceived that
+they rode to support the holders of the castle, they were greeted with
+lusty cheers, in which presently even the militia joined, for these last
+were Piacentini and no Swiss hireling soldiers of the Duke's.
+
+The drawbridge was let down, and the company thundered over it to draw up
+in the courtyard under the eyes of Galeotto.  He issued his orders once
+more to his companions.  Then calling for horses for himself and for me,
+and bidding a score of lances to detach themselves to ride with us, we
+quitted the fortress.
+
+We pressed through the clamant multitude until we had reached the middle of
+the square.  Here Galeotto drew rein and, raising his hand for silence,
+informed the people once more that the Duke had been done to death by the
+nobles of Piacenza, thus to avenge alike their own and the people's wrongs,
+and to free them from unjust oppression and tyranny.
+
+They cheered him when he had done, and the cry now was "Piacenza!
+Piacenza!"
+
+When they had fallen silent again--"I would have you remember," he cried,
+"that Pier Luigi was the Pontiff's son, and that the Pontiff will make
+haste to avenge his death and to re-establish here in Piacenza the Farnese
+sway.  So that all that we have done this day may go for naught unless we
+take our measures."
+
+The silence deepened.
+
+"But you have been served by men who have the interest of the State at
+heart; and more has been done to serve you than the mere slaying of Pier
+Luigi Farnese.  Our plans are made, and we but wait to know is it your will
+that the State should incorporate itself as of old with that of Milan, and
+place itself under the protection of the Emperor, who will appoint you
+fellow-countrymen for rulers, and will govern you wisely and justly,
+abolishing extortion and oppression?"
+
+A thunder of assent was his answer.  "Cesare!  Cesare!" was now the cry,
+and caps were tossed into the air.
+
+"Then go arm yourselves and repair to the Commune, and there make known
+your will to the Anziani and councillors, and see that it is given effect
+by them.  The Emperor's Lieutenant is at your gates.  I ride to surrender
+to him the city in your name, and before nightfall he will be here to
+protect you from any onslaught of the Pontificals."
+
+With that he pushed on, the mob streaming along with us, intent upon going
+there and then to do the thing that Galeotto advised.  And by now they had
+discovered Galeotto's name, and they were shouting it in acclamation of
+him, and at the sound he smiled, though his eyes seemed very wistful.
+
+He leaned over to me, and gripped my hand where it lay on the saddle-bow
+clutching the reins.
+
+"Thus is Giovanni d'Anguissola at last avenged!" he said to me in a deep
+voice that thrilled me.
+
+"I would that he were here to know," I answered.
+
+And again Galeotto's eyes grew wistful as they looked at me.
+
+We won out of the town at last, and when we came to the high ground beyond
+the river, we saw in the plain below phalanx upon phalanx of a great army.
+It was Ferrante Gonzaga's Imperial force.
+
+Galeotto pointed to it.  "That is my goal," he said.  "You had best ride on
+to Pagliano with these lances.  You may need them there.  I had hoped that
+Cosimo would have been found in the castle with Pier Luigi.  His absence
+makes me uneasy.  Away with you, then.  You shall have news of me within
+three days."
+
+We embraced, on horseback as we were.  Then he wheeled his charger and went
+down the steep ground, riding hard for Ferrante's army, whilst we pursued
+our way, and came some two hours later without mishap to Pagliano.
+
+I found Bianca awaiting me in the gallery above the courtyard, drawn
+thither by the sounds of our approach.
+
+"Dear Agostino, I have been so fearful for you," was her greeting when I
+had leapt up the staircase to take her hand.
+
+I led her to the marble seat she had occupied on that night, two years ago,
+when first we had spoken of our visions.  Briefly I gave her the news of
+what had befallen in Piacenza.
+
+When I had done, she sighed and looked at me.
+
+"It brings us no nearer to each other," she said.
+
+"Nay, now--this much nearer, at least, that the Imperial decree will return
+me the lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina, dispossessing the usurper.  Thus
+I shall have something to offer you, my Bianca."
+
+She smiled at me very sadly, almost reproachfully.
+
+"Foolish," said she.  "What matter the possessions that it may be yours to
+cast into my lap?  Is that what we wait for, Agostino?  Is there not
+Pagliano for you?  Would not that, at need, be lordship enough?"
+
+"The meanest cottage of the countryside were lordship enough so that you
+shared it," I answered passionately, as many in like case have answered
+before and since.
+
+"You see, then, that you are wrong to attach importance to so slight a
+thing as this Imperial decree where you and I are concerned.  Can an
+Imperial decree annul my marriage?"
+
+"For that a papal bull would be necessary."
+
+"And how is a papal bull to be obtained?"
+
+"It is not for us," I admitted miserably.
+
+"I have been wicked," she said, her eyes upon the ground, a faint colour
+stirring in her cheeks.  "I have prayed that the usurper might be
+dispossessed of his rights in me.  I have prayed that when the attack was
+made and revolt was carried into the Citadel of Piacenza, Cosimo
+d'Anguissola might stand at his usual post beside the Duke and might fall
+with him.  Surely justice demanded it!" she cried out.  "God's justice, as
+well as man's.  His act in marrying me was a defilement of one of the
+holiest of sacraments, and for that he should surely be punished and struck
+down!"
+
+I went upon my knees to her.  "Dear love!" I cried.  "See, I have you daily
+in my sight.  Let me not be ungrateful for so much."
+
+She took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes, saying no word.
+Then she leaned forward, and very gently touched my forehead with her 1ips.
+
+"God pity us a little, Agostino," she murmured, her eyes shining with
+unshed tears.
+
+"The fault is mine--all mine!" I denounced myself.  "We are being visited
+with my sins.  When I can take you for my own--if that blessed day should
+ever dawn--I shall know that I have attained to pardon, that I am cleansed
+and worthy of you at last."
+
+She rose and I escorted her within; then went to my own chamber to bathe
+and rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE CITATION
+
+
+We were breaking our fast upon the following morning when Falcone sent word
+to me by one of the pages that a considerable force was advancing towards
+us from the south.
+
+I rose, somewhat uneasy.  Yet I reflected that it was possible that, news
+of the revolt in Piacenza having reached Parma, this was an army of
+Pontificals moving thence upon the rebellious city.  But in that case, what
+should they be doing this side of Po?
+
+An hour later, from the battlements where we paced side by side--Bianca and
+I--we were able to estimate this force and we fixed its strength at five
+score lances.  Soon we could make out the device upon their bannerols--a
+boar's head azure upon an argent field--my own device, that of the
+Anguissola of Mondolfo; and instantly I knew them for Cosimo's men.
+
+On the lower parapet six culverins had been dragged into position under the
+supervision of Falcone--who was still with us at Pagliano.  These pieces
+stood loaded and manned by the soldiers to whom I had assigned the office
+of engineers.
+
+Thus we waited until the little army came to a halt about a quarter of a
+mile away, and a trumpeter with a flag of truce rode forward accompanied by
+a knight armed cap-a-pie, his beaver down.
+
+The herald wound a challenge; and it was answered from the postern by a
+man-at-arms, whereupon the herald delivered his message.
+
+"In the name of our Holy Father and Lord, Paul III, we summon Agostino
+d'Anguissola here to confer with the High and Mighty Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+Tyrant of Mondolfo and Carmina."
+
+Three minutes later, to their infinite surprise, the bridge thudded down to
+span the ditch, and I walked out upon it with Bianca at my side.
+
+"Will the Lord Cosimo come within to deliver his message?" I demanded.
+
+The Lord Cosimo would not, fearing a trap.
+
+"Will he meet us here upon the bridge, divesting himself first of his
+weapons?  Myself I am unarmed."
+
+The herald conveyed the words to Cosimo, who hesitated still.  Indeed, he
+had wheeled his horse when the bridge fell, ready to gallop off at the
+first sign of a sortie.
+
+I laughed.  "You are a paltry coward, Cosimo, when all is said," I shouted.
+"Do you not see that had I planned to take you, I need resort to no
+subterfuge?  I have," I added--though untruthfully--" twice your number of
+lances under arms, and by now I could have flung them across the bridge and
+taken you under the very eyes of your own men.  You were rash to venture so
+far.  But if you will not venture farther, at least send me your herald."
+
+At that he got down from his horse, delivered up sword and dagger to his
+single attendant, received from the man a parchment, and came towards us,
+opening his vizor as he advanced.  Midway upon the bridge we met.  His lips
+curled in a smile of scorn.
+
+"Greetings, my strolling saint," he said.  "Through all your vagaries you
+are at least consistent in that you ever engage your neighbour's wife to
+bear you company in your wanderings."
+
+I went hot and cold, red and white by turns.  With difficulty I controlled
+myself under that taunt--the cruellest he could have flung at me in
+Bianca's hearing.
+
+"Your business here?" I snarled.
+
+He held out the parchment, his eyes watching me intently, so that they
+never once strayed to Bianca.
+
+"Read, St. Mountebank," he bade me.
+
+I took the paper, but before I lowered my eyes to it, I gave him warning.
+
+"If on your part you attempt the slightest treachery," I said, "you shall
+be repaid in kind.  My men are at the winches, and they have my orders that
+at the first treacherous movement on your part they are to take up the
+bridge.  You will see that you could not reach the end of it in time to
+save yourself."
+
+It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver.  "Have you
+trapped me?" he asked between his teeth.
+
+"If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name," I answered, "you
+would know me incapable of such a thing.  It is because I know that of the
+Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven, a dastard
+and a dog, that I have taken my precautions."
+
+"Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if bound
+hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?"
+
+I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.
+
+"Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself
+affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take it
+up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking."
+
+For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as most
+fervently I hoped.  But he restrained himself.
+
+"Read!" he bade me again, with a fierce gesture.  And accounting him well
+warned by now, I read with confidence.
+
+It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death to
+make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which I
+traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
+
+"This document is not exact," said I.  "I do not hold this castle
+traitorously.  It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's
+name."
+
+He smiled.  "Persist if you are weary of life," he said.  "Surrender now,
+and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list.  Continue in your
+offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done.  This
+Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano by
+virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the
+Emperor.
+
+"And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the Emperor's
+Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to cast you out and
+to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's law and man's alike."
+
+My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point.  I held out the
+brief to him.
+
+"To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan.  You
+will find him in Piacenza."
+
+He looked at me, as if he did not understand.  "How?" he asked.
+
+I explained.  "While you have been cooling your heels in the ante-chambers
+of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy, the world
+hereabouts has moved a little.  Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took possession
+of Piacenza in the Emperor's name.  To-day the Council will be swearing
+fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant's hands."
+
+He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement.  Then
+he swallowed hard.
+
+"And the Duke?" he asked.
+
+"The Duke has been in Hell these four-and-twenty hours."
+
+"Dead?" he questioned, his voice hushed.
+
+"Dead," said I.
+
+He leaned against the rail of the bridge, his arms fallen limply to his
+sides, one hand crushing the Pontifical parchment.  Then he braced himself
+again.  He had reviewed the situation, and did not see that it hurt his
+position, when all was said.
+
+"Even so," he urged, "what can you hope for?  The Emperor himself must bow
+before this, and do me justice."  And he smacked the document.  "I demand
+my wife, and my demand is backed by Pontifical authority.  You are mad if
+you think that Charles V can fail to support it."
+
+"It is possible that Charles V may take a different view of the memorial
+setting forth the circumstances of your marriage, from that which the Holy
+Father appears to have taken.  I counsel you to seek the Imperial
+Lieutenant at Piacenza without delay.  Here you waste time."
+
+His lips closed with a snap.  Then, at last, his eyes wandered to Bianca,
+who stood just beside and slightly behind me.
+
+"Let me appeal to you, Monna Bianca..." he began.
+
+But at that I got between them.  "Are you so dead to shame," I roared,
+"that you dare address her, you pimp, you jackal, you eater of dirt?  Be
+off, or I will have this drawbridge raised and deal with you here and now,
+in despite of Pope and Emperor and all the other powers you can invoke.
+Away with you, then!"
+
+"You shall pay!" he snarled, "By God, you shall pay!"
+
+And on that he went off, in some fear lest I should put my threat into
+execution.
+
+But Bianca was in a panic.  "He will do as he says." she cried as soon as
+we had re-entered the courtyard.  "The Emperor cannot deny him justice.  He
+must, he must!  0, Agostino, it is the end.  And see to what a pass I have
+brought you!"
+
+I comforted her.  I spoke brave words.  I swore to hold that castle as long
+as one stone of it stood upon another.  But deep down in my heart there was
+naught but presages of evil.
+
+On the following day, which was Sunday, we had peace.  But towards noon on
+Monday the blow fell.  An Imperial herald from Piacenza rode out to
+Pagliano with a small escort.
+
+We were in the garden when word was brought us, and I bade the herald be
+admitted.  Then I looked at Bianca.  She was trembling and had turned very
+white.
+
+We spoke no word whilst they brought the messenger--a brisk fellow in his
+black-and-yellow Austrian livery.  He delivered me a sealed letter.  It
+proved to be a summons from Ferrante Gonzaga to appear upon the morrow
+before the Imperial Court which would sit in the Communal Palace of
+Piacenza to deliver judgment upon an indictment laid against me by Cosimo
+d'Anguissola.
+
+I looked at the herald, hesitation in my mind and glance.  He held out a
+second letter.
+
+"This, my lord, I was asked by favour to deliver to you also."
+
+I took it, and considered the superscription:
+
+"These to the Most Noble Agostino d'Anguissola, at Pagliano.
+
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly.
+     Quickly."
+
+The hand was Galeotto's.  I tore it open.  It contained but two lines:
+
+"Upon your life do not fail to obey the Imperial summons.  Send Falcone to
+me here at once."  And it was signed--"GALEOTTO."
+
+"It is well," I said to the herald, "I will not fail to attend."
+
+I bade the seneschal who stood in attendance to give the messenger
+refreshment ere he left, and upon that dismissed him.
+
+When we were alone I turned to Bianca.  "Galeotto bids me go," I said.
+"There is surely hope."
+
+She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away
+some mist that obscured her vision, she read it.  Then she considered the
+curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
+
+"It is the end," I said.  "One way or the other, it is the end.  But for
+Galeotto's letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made myself
+an outlaw indeed.  As it is--there is surely hope!"
+
+"0, Agostino, surely, surely!" she cried.  "Have we not suffered enough?
+Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours?
+To�morrow I shall go with you to Piacenza."
+
+"No, no," I implored her.
+
+"Could I remain here?" she pleaded.  "Could I sit here and wait?  Could you
+be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?"
+
+"But if...if the worst befalls?"
+
+"It cannot," she answered.  "I believe in God."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WILL OF HEAVEN
+
+
+In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the
+Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes--the
+Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza.  And to preside over them sat not
+their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet
+edged with miniver.
+
+They sat at a long table draped in red at the room's end, Gonzaga slightly
+above them on a raised dais, under a canopy.  Behind him hung a golden
+shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns each surmounted
+by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a scroll intertwining
+the pillars was charged with the motto "PLUS ULTRA."
+
+At the back of the court stood the curious who had come to see the show,
+held in bounds by a steel line of Spanish halberdiers.  But the concourse
+was slight, for the folk of Piacenza still had weightier matters to concern
+them than the trial of a wife-stealer.
+
+I had ridden in with an escort of twenty lances.  But I left these in the
+square when I entered the palace and formally made surrender to the officer
+who met me.  This officer led me at once into the Chamber of Justice, two
+men-at-arms opening a lane for me through the people with the butts of
+their pikes, so that I came into the open space before my judges, and bowed
+profoundly to Gonzaga.
+
+Coldly he returned the salutation, his prominent eyes regarding me from out
+of that florid, crafty countenance.
+
+On my left, but high up the room and immediately at right angles to the
+judges' tables, sat Galeotto, full-armed.  He was flanked on the one side
+by Fra Gervasio, who greeted me with a melancholy smile, and on the other
+by Falcone, who sat rigid.
+
+Opposite to this group on the judges' other hand stood Cosimo.  He was
+flushed, and his eyes gleamed as they measured me with haughty triumph.
+From me they passed to Bianca, who followed after me with her women, pale,
+but intrepid and self-contained, her face the whiter by contrast with the
+mourning-gown which she still wore for her father, and which it might well
+come to pass that she should continue hereafter to wear for me.
+
+I did not look at her again as she passed on and up towards Galeotto, who
+had risen to receive her.  He came some few steps to meet her, and escorted
+her to a seat next to his own, so that Falcone moved down to another vacant
+stool.  Her women found place behind her.
+
+An usher set a chair for me, and I, too, sat down, immediately facing the
+Emperor's Lieutenant.  Then another usher in a loud voice summoned Cosimo
+to appear and state his grievance.
+
+He advanced a step or two, when Gonzaga raised his hand, to sign to him to
+remain where he was so that all could see him whilst he spoke.
+
+Forthwith, quickly, fluently, and lucidly, as if he had got the thing by
+heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca de'
+Cavalcanti by her father's consent in her father's own Castle of Pagliano;
+how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently invested by
+myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off his bride and
+burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her from him, shut up
+in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his quality as her
+husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano against him to
+his hurt.
+
+Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had
+issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death, to
+make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that it
+was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate that I had
+surrendered.  Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy Father's
+authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and my life forfeit,
+restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of Pagliano, which be would
+hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor.
+
+Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.
+
+The Ten looked at Gonzaga.  Gonzaga looked at me.
+
+"Have you anything to say?" he asked.
+
+I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.
+
+"Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative," said I.  "When he
+says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the night of
+his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others abetting me, he
+would do well to add in the interests of justice, the names of those who
+were my abettors."
+
+Cosimo rose again.  "Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at
+issue what caitiffs he employed?" he asked haughtily.
+
+"If they were caitiffs it would not matter," said I.  "But they were not.
+Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much.
+The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca's own father, who, having
+discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was
+engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy."
+
+Cosimo shrugged.  "These are mere words," he said.
+
+"The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth," I
+cried.
+
+"A prejudiced witness, indeed!" said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga
+nodded, whereupon my heart sank.
+
+"Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were with
+him?" quoth Cosimo.  "It will no doubt assist the ends of justice, for
+those men should be standing by him now."
+
+He checked me no more than in time.  I had been on the point of citing
+Falcone; and suddenly I perceived that to do so would be to ruin Falcone
+without helping myself.
+
+I looked at my cousin.  "In that case," said I, "I will not name them."
+
+Falcone, however, was minded to name himself, for with a grunt he made
+suddenly to rise.  But Galeotto stretched an arm across Bianca, and forced
+the equerry back into his seat.
+
+Cosimo saw and smiled.  He was very sure of himself by now.
+
+"The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord of
+Pagliano," he said.  "And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in naming
+one who is dead.  Your excellency will know the precise importance to
+attach to that."
+
+Again his excellency nodded.  Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed?  My
+calm deserted me.
+
+"Will Messer Cosimo tell your excellency under what circumstances the Lord
+of Pagliano died?" I cried.
+
+"It is yourself should be better able to inform the Court of that,"
+answered Cosimo quickly, "since he died at Pagliano after you had borne his
+daughter thither, as we have proof."
+
+Gonzaga looked at him sharply.  "Are you implying, sir, that there is a
+further crime for which Messer Agostino d'Anguissola should be indicted?"
+he inquired.
+
+Cosimo shrugged and pursed his lips.  "I will not go so far, since the
+matter of Ettore Cavalcanti's death does not immediately concern me.
+Besides, there is enough contained in the indictment as it stands."
+
+The imputation was none the less terrible, and could not fail of an effect
+upon the minds of the Ten.  I was in despair, for at every question it
+seemed that the tide of destruction rose higher about me.  I deemed myself
+irrevocably lost.  The witnesses I might have called were as good as
+gagged.
+
+Yet there was one last question in my quiver--a question which I thought
+must crumple up his confidence.
+
+"Can you tell his excellency where you were upon your marriage night?" I
+cried hoarsely, my temples throbbing.
+
+Superbly Cosimo looked round at the Court; he shrugged, and shook his head
+as if in utter pity.
+
+"I leave it to your excellency to say where a man should be upon his
+marriage night," he said, with an astounding impudence, and there were some
+who tittered in the crowd behind me.  "Let me again beg your excellency and
+your worthinesses to pass to judgment, and so conclude this foolish
+comedy."
+
+Gonzaga nodded gravely, as if entirely approving, whilst with a fat
+jewelled hand he stroked his ample chin.
+
+"I, too, think that it is time," he said, whereupon Cosimo, with a sigh of
+relief, would have resumed his seat but that I stayed him with the last
+thing I had to say.
+
+"My lord," I cried, appealing to Gonzaga, "the true events of that night
+are set forth in a memorial of which two copies were drawn up, one for the
+Pope and the other for your excellency, as the Emperor's vicegerent.  Shall
+I recite its contents--that Messer Cosimo may be examined upon them.
+
+"It is not necessary," came Gonzaga's icy voice.  "The memorial is here
+before me."  And he tapped a document upon the table.  Then he fixed his
+prominent eyes upon Cosimo.  "You are aware of its contents?" he asked.
+
+Cosimo bowed, and Galeotto moved at last, for the first time since the
+trial's inception.
+
+Until now he had sat like a carved image, save when he had thrust out a
+hand to restrain Falcone, and his attitude had filled me with an
+unspeakable dread.  But at this moment he leaned forward turning an ear
+towards Cosimo, as if anxious not to miss a single word that the man might
+utter.  And Cosimo, intent as he was, did not observe the movement.
+
+"I saw its fellow at the Vatican," said my cousin, "and since the Pope in
+his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it
+bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your
+excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola before you here.
+
+"Thus is that memorial disposed of as a false and lying document."
+
+"And yet," said Gonzaga thoughtfully, his heavy lip between thumb and
+forefinger, "it bears, amongst others, the signature of the Lord of
+Pagliano's confessor."
+
+"Without violation of the seal of the confessional, it is impossible for
+that friar to testify," was the answer.  "And the Holy Father cannot grant
+him dispensation for so much.  His signature, therefore, stands for
+nothing."
+
+There followed a moment's silence.  The Ten whispered among themselves.
+But Gonzaga never consulted them by so much as a glance.  They appeared to
+serve none but a decorative office in that Court of his, for they bore no
+share in the dispensing of a justice of which he constituted himself the
+sole arbiter.
+
+At last the Governor spoke.
+
+"It seems, indeed, that there is no more to say and the Court has a clear
+course before it, since the Emperor cannot contravene the mandates of the
+Holy See.  Nothing remains, then, but to deliver sentence; unless..."
+
+He paused, and his eyes singularly sly, his lips pursed almost humorously,
+he turned his glance upon Galeotto.
+
+"Ser Cosimo," he said, "has pronounced this memorial a false and lying
+document.  Is there anything that you, Messer Galeotto, as its author, can
+have to tell the Court?"
+
+Instantly the condottiero rose, his great scarred face very solemn, his
+eyes brooding.  He advanced almost to the very centre of the table, so that
+he all but stood immediately before Gonzaga, yet sideways, so that I had
+him in profile, whilst he fully faced Cosimo.
+
+Cosimo at least had ceased to smile.  His handsome white face had lost some
+of its supercilious confidence.  Here was something unexpected, something
+upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not provided.
+
+"What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience," Gonzaga
+answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some of Cosimo's
+uneasiness must have been dissipated.
+
+I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a
+word of what was to follow.  The blood that had earlier surged to my face
+had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.
+
+Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.
+
+"Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which you
+acted in summoning hither the accused?"
+
+Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto's hands.  The
+condottiero studied it, frowning.  Then he smote it sharply with his right
+hand.
+
+"This document is not in order," he announced.
+
+"How?" quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now,
+convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.
+
+"You are here described as Cosimo d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and
+Carmina.  These titles are not yours."
+
+The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo's cheeks.
+
+"Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi," he
+replied.
+
+Gonzaga spoke.  "The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke, and
+the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by Imperial
+decree.  All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible to their
+original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to Caesar."
+
+Cosimo continued to smile.  "This is no matter of a confiscation effected
+by Duke Pier Luigi," he said.  "The confiscation and my own investiture in
+the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d'Anguissola's
+recreancy--at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is expressly
+announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and in the brief which
+lies before your excellency.  Nor was such express announcement necessary,
+for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to the Tyranny of Mondolfo, it
+follows that upon his being outlawed and his life forfeit I enter upon my
+succession."
+
+Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated.  But Galeotto showed no sign
+of defeat.
+
+"Where is this bull you speak of?" he demanded, as though he were the judge
+himself.
+
+Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga.  "Does your excellency ask to
+see it?"
+
+"Assuredly," said Gonzaga shortly.  "I may not take your word for its
+existence."
+
+Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet,
+unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood near
+Galeotto--not more than an arm's length between them.
+
+The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto.  "It seems in order,"
+he said.
+
+Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he
+looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre now
+wore a smile.
+
+"It is as irregular as the other," he said.  "It is entirely worthless."
+
+"Worthless?" quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful.  "But
+have I not already explained..."
+
+"It sets forth here," cut in Galeotto with assurance, "that the fief of
+Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola.  Now I
+submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses," he added, turning
+aside, "that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since Mondolfo
+and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola, and could no
+more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the back of a naked
+man--unless," he added, sneering, "a papal bull is capable of miracles."
+
+Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of the
+enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind.  In the court the
+silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.
+
+"Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong--that they never were
+the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?" he asked.
+
+"That is what I say," returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and
+formidable in his gleaming armour.
+
+"To whom, then, did they belong?"
+
+"They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola--Agostino's father."
+
+Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his
+countenance.
+
+"What folly is this?" he cried.  "Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia
+eight years ago."
+
+"That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has
+left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own
+son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi
+lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.
+
+"But he did not die at Perugia.  At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar
+which for thirteen years has served him for a mask."  And he pointed to his
+own face.
+
+I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard.  Galeotto was Giovanni
+d'Anguissola--my father!  And my heart had never told me so!
+
+In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should
+have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
+
+How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had mentioned
+as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could have been
+myself?
+
+I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.
+
+"Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the
+hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me from
+Pope and Pope's bastards; now that I have accomplished my life's work, and
+broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth again and
+resume the state that is my own.
+
+"There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true identity;
+there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and there are
+the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me when I lay at the
+point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at Perugia."
+
+"So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against my
+son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and get
+them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina other
+than myself."
+
+Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by this
+shattering blow.
+
+And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him.  But after
+being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he mistrusted
+now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with as a mouse by
+this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.
+
+"We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice," purred the
+Lieutenant.  "There is this memorial, my lord," he said, and tapped the
+document, his eyes upon my father.
+
+"Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand, it
+can, I think, be done," he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.
+
+"You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose
+names are here cannot be admitted to testify."
+
+Cosimo braced himself for a last effort.  "Do you defy the Pope?" he
+thundered.
+
+"If necessary," was the answer.  "I have done so all my life."
+
+Cosimo turned to Gonzaga.  "It is not I who have branded this memorial
+false," he said, "but the Holy Father himself."
+
+"The Emperor," said my father, "may opine that in this matter the Holy
+Father has been deluded by liars.  There are other witnesses.  There is
+myself, for one.  This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted to
+me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his
+confessor."
+
+"We cannot admit the confessor," Gonzaga thrust in.
+
+"Give me leave, your excellency.  It was not in his quality as confessor
+that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone.  Cavalcanti's confession
+followed upon that.  And there was in addition present the seneschal of
+Pagliano who is present here.  Sufficient to establish this memorial alike
+before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.
+
+"And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight," he continued in a
+ringing voice, "that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore
+Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those
+others swear.  And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's vicegerent, to
+accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff Cosimo d'Anguissola,
+who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a deed--for it involved the
+defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage."
+
+"In that you lie!" screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at his
+throat and brow swelling like ropes.
+
+A silence followed.  My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.
+Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet.  Holding this by the
+fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very
+calm again after his late furious mood.
+
+"Be it so," he said.  "Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to
+prove it upon my body."
+
+And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the skin
+was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of the
+visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
+
+Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir there
+was amid the Ten.  For by the ancient laws of chivalry--however much they
+might be falling now into desuetude--if Cosimo took up the glove, the
+matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide
+by the issue of the trial by battle.
+
+For a long moment Cosimo hesitated.  Then he saw ruin all about him.  He--
+who had come to this court so confidently--had walked into a trap.  He saw
+it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered
+him.  He played the man in the end.  He stooped and took up the glove.
+
+"Upon your body, then--God helping me," he said.
+
+Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side.  I caught
+his arm.
+
+"Let me!  Father, let me!
+
+He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed moist
+and singularly soft.
+
+"My son!" he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's
+caress.
+
+"My father!" I answered him, a knot in my throat.
+
+"Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name," he
+said.  "But the challenge is given and accepted.  Do you take Bianca to the
+Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail.  Gervasio
+shall go with you."
+
+And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
+
+"My lord," he said, "will you determine when and where this battle is to be
+fought?"
+
+"Upon the instant," answered my father, "on the banks of Po with a score of
+lances to keep the lists."
+
+Gonzaga looked at Cosimo.  "Do you agree to this?"
+
+"It cannot be too soon for me," replied the quivering Cosimo, black hatred
+in his glance.
+
+"Be it so, then," said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with
+him.
+
+My father pressed my hand again.  "To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come," he
+said, and on that we parted.
+
+My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders.  In so far as it concerned
+myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
+
+At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to the
+Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made my way
+through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where my lances,
+who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight of me.
+
+Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks.  We
+knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's
+lowest step.
+
+Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the
+church.
+
+Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
+
+And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my
+young life as it had been unfolded hitherto.  I reviewed its beginnings in
+the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother
+who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity.  But
+my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as
+she directed.  I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very
+mockery of what she strove to make me--a strolling saint, indeed, as Cosimo
+had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought after holiness.
+
+But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this
+altar, as I knew.
+
+Deeply had I sinned.  But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the
+heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year at
+Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife.  That cross
+of penitence--so singularly condign to my sin--I had borne with fortitude,
+heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon and that the
+burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was complete.  In the
+lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that pardon was mine at
+last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this pure maid through whom I
+should have won to grace, through whom I had come to learn that Love--God's
+greatest gift--is the great sanctifier of man.
+
+That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I did
+not for a moment doubt.
+
+Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
+
+Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
+
+He looked, and the anxiety passed.  Thankfulness overspread his face.  He
+smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes.  Seeing this, I, too, dared to
+look at last.
+
+Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him followed
+Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
+
+"Let the will of Heaven be done," said my father.  And Gervasio came down
+to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Strolling Saint, by Rafael Sabatini
+
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